The Uganda Film Unit Archive: Digitisation, Research and Restitution

This three-year project is focused on a recently rediscovered collection of news and public information film reels from the Uganda Film Unit (UFU) c.1947-1981, including many made under the Idi Amin regime (1971-79).

The vast majority of these films have never been screened and yet they are of immense historical importance. They represent the most complete media archive ever found of Uganda, documenting numerous national events and containing the only known footage of key moments in the country’s history.

The collection is of global historical significance, offering major insights into colonial and post-colonial media, Pan-Africanism, African decolonisation, Cold War geopolitics, and the history of developmentalism in the Global South. Above all, it provides an unprecedented window onto the Amin years –that most notorious, brutal and opaque episode of Africa’s post-colonial history – and into how Amin, like many demagogues, used state media to amplify his populist appeal.

The project is a collaboration between Professor Darren Newbury at Brighton, Prof. Richard Vokes at the University of Western Australia, and Winston Agaba at the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. It aims to map the contents of the collection, undertake historical and ethnographic research, and reconnect the films with Ugandan publics and audiences through a programme of digital restitution co-designed with project partners.