Forest Whitaker Latest Film Deals With Uganda’s Child Soldiers

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Forest Whitaker Says He’s Got 3 Projects He Plans To Direct; One Dealing With Uganda’s Child Soldiers | Filmmakers, Film Industry, Film Festivals, Awards & Movie Reviews | indieWIRE.

Whitaker as General Idi Amin in The Last King ...
Forest Whitaker as General Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland

Forest Whitaker has a number of films he plans to direct, one of particular interest is ‘Better Angel’s’. Better Angels is a film close to Whitaker’s heart and focuses on the child soldiers of Northern Uganda. In 2007 Whitaker won an academy award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland.

Pre-production for his film is expected to begin in April of this year, and Child Troopers director Ebony Butler, is hoping to be involved with the making of the film.

Better Angels, although a fiction film, has many similarities with our documentary Child Troopers. Both have common themes based on events and situations that arose from the LRA conflict, that has seen over 30,000 children abducted and forced to become child soldiers.

It will be interesting to see how Better Angels will portray the war, as recent films and documentaries that center on the LRA and the topical issue of child soldiers have been rather skewed and few, if any, have gone deep enough to find the true causes and possible solutions to the ongoing conflict.

4 Comments

  1. Kony is dead or abroad. I’ve been to Gulu . I spoke to the people and there’s been no war for 6 years.
    Questions for Invisible Children:
    1. Why doesn’t Invisible Children fight for the freedom of child soldiers in the UDPF?
    2. Did Invisible Children edit the original movie at the insistence of the Ugandan government and accept money from the Museveni government to change it to sanitize the atrocities committed by the government in the north?
    3. Why does Invisible Children pay the travel expenses of Ugandan politicians? Walter Ochora should not be accepting money from the organization.
    4. How can Invisible Children remain an American tax-exempt charity when it is so involved in politics and lobbying? That is illegal.
    5. What is Invisible Children’s exit strategy for Uganda?
    6. How much money did Invisible Children receive in donations as a result of Nate Henn’s death in the Kampala bombings? Was there a spike in donations? 7. Money from Nate Henn’s death….how much and how was the money disbursed?
    8. In light of WikiLeaks memo indicating that the U.S. is aware Uganda army has committed war crimes in its fight against LRA how does Invisible Children feel working on same side with a government that could be eventually brought on war crimes charges?
    http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/6992/2010-12-08.html
    9. Does Invisible Children feel any moral obligation to disassociate itself from Uganda government and denounce the alleged war crimes mentioned in the memo by the U.S. ambassador? 10. Since Invisible Children is exclusively concerned with, and a participating agent in pursuit of, the alleged war crimes & etc. of Joseph Kony and the LRA, how do they explain the persistence and perseverance of Kony in the face of what is arguably and penultimately the world’s greatest manhunt at present (Osama bin Laden being the first)?
    11. Who are Kony’s contacts (and power affiliations) in the USA?
    12. Have Invisible Children worked with USA military support in Northern Uganda?
    13. What are Invisible Children’s links and/or relations and/or affiliations with AFRICOM?
    14. Which Ugandan politicians and how many has IC paid the travel expenses for?
    http://jezebel.com/5891878/kony-2012-director-says-its-not-about-money-while-campaign-makes-millions

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  3. Pingback: Bloody Idi Amin | An African Tyrant | The Nahmias Cipher Report

  4. I love how fiction can push a cause on the agenda. Such as Hotel Ruanda did perhaps even more than The Last King Of Scotland. – The average person next door suddenly opened their hearts to a cause that not even international trials, news or the United Nations could bring forward as strongly, as Hollywood could and can. – I’m looking forward to this one … and fingers crossed! I hope it helps our cause!

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