Five years of struggle

From political prison in Uganda to the Oscar stage

For the first time, a documentary film from Uganda has been nominated for an Oscar. The film criticizes a regime that is also financed with Austrian money.

It was a strange sentence for a president: "The mouth is for eating," said Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda. The sentence was uttered in 2018 during the presentation of new anti-homosexuality laws. The mouth is for eating and not for oral sex, the president said. A second resonating meaning: the mouth is for eating, not for criticizing the president. Uganda, once a model African state and the heartland of Austrian development aid, is increasingly drifting towards an authoritarian regime. For one of the most important and brutally persecuted critics of the regime, the weeks leading up to the Oscars are now crucial.