Movies Similar to Uganda: Hounds of Hope

Crazy Money(2021)

What is possible when we have guaranteed money to meet our basic needs? No requirements. No stipulations. No paybacks. We look to the village of Busibi to discover what’s possible when we give money directly to people. No strings attached. The answer lies in the residents’ personal stories. Their successes and tribulations illustrate the impact of one of the most daring projects in contemporary development cooperation. Their life stories unexpectedly prove to be all too familiar. They make us laugh. They move us. Blending in together, they create a colorful and poetic reality portrait, illustrating the big consequences of a small sum of money …

Memory Books(2008)

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.

War Dance(2007)

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

Vosaltres els blancs(2008)

A Simpler Way

Four students from the President's Leadership Circle at Frostburg State University journey to a remote village in Uganda to discover a radically simple solution to an urgent global problem. What they find there changes their lives in unexpected ways. A Simpler Way is a documentary production from Frostburg State University and Interdependent Pictures that explores the need for simple, affordable solutions to global development issues and the role of personal experience in meaningful, transformative education.

General Idi Amin Dada(1974)

Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder shows the Ugandan dictator meeting his Cabinet, reviewing his troops, explaining his ideology.

Out of Uganda(2023)

Philip, Lynn, Hussein and Shammy, young LGBT Ugandans, are fighting for survival. Staying in their country, where religious oppressions and discriminations prevail, endangers their lives. Then, their latest hope is to leave it all behind and experience a long and painful exile.

Rise of the Warrior Apes(2017)

Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances and destroyed trust.

Sketches(2017)

A British artist misses his parents' wedding anniversary for a last-minute sketching commission in Cornwall, but memories of them affect his work along the way.

Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within(2025)

The story behind the Uganda-based YouTube dance sensations who have endured devastating personal loss from famine and war, and use the power of dance and song to overcome hardship.

The War Against Women(2013)

Sexual violence against women is a very effective weapon in modern warfare: instills fear and spreads the seed of the victorious side, an outrageous method that is useful to exterminate the defeated side by other means. This use of women, both their bodies and their minds, as a battleground, was crucial for international criminal tribunals to begin to judge rape as a crime against humanity.

The Thing That Happened(2011)

'The Thing That Happened' is a twenty-two-minute documentary short that profiles the Hope North Secondary and Vocational school on northern Uganda. Hope North struggles on a shoe-string budget to provide a home and an education for children displaced by the civil war between the Lord's Resistance Army (L.R.A.) and the Uganda People's Defense Forces (U.D.P.F.) The students are a mix of former child soldiers, orphans and the abjectly poor. Mitigating the horrific effects of the war and focusing them on their future is a monumental task

Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson(1930)

As if they were showing their film to a few friends in their home, the Johnsons describe their trip across the world, which begins in the South Pacific islands of Hawaii, Samoa, Australia, the Solomons (where they seek and find cannibals), and New Hebrides. Thence on to Africa via the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, North Africa, and the Nile River to lion country in Tanganyika. (They are briefly joined in Khartum by George Eastman and Dr. Al Kayser.) Taking a safari in the Congo, the Johnsons see animals and pygmies, and travel back to Uganda, British East Africa, and Kenya.

Chimpanzee(2012)

A nature documentary centered on a family of chimps living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests. Through Oscar, a little chimpanzee, we discover learning about life in the heart of the African tropical forest and follow his first steps in this world with humor, emotion and anguish. Following a tragedy, he finds himself separated from his mother and left alone to face the hostility of the jungle. Until he is picked up by an older chimpanzee, who will take him under her protection.

Thrown into Canada(2022)

This documentary explores the history of Canada’s first major migration of non-European and non-white refugees who arrived in 1972 when Ugandan President Idi Amin expelled all South Asians from the country. Their story of struggle and hope became part of Canada’s conversations about refugees and cultural pluralism, and informed the Canadian response to future refugee movements.

The Save the Children Fund Film(1971)

Director Ken Loach explores the politics of race, class and charity in a capitalist society in this documentary funded by the Save the Children foundation.

The John Akii Bua Story: An African Tragedy(2008)

At the Munich Olympics of 1972, John Akii Bua, from the impoverished African country of Uganda, powered round the inside lane in the 400m hurdles, past the English favourite, and reigning Olympic Champion David Hemery, to win the gold medal, 10m clear of the field. John Akii Bua had become the first African to win gold in an event under 800 metres. He was also the first man to break the 48 seconds barrier in the 400 metre hurdles, an event so gruelling its nickname is 'The Mankiller'. This is the story about that amazing triumph - and what happened next. David Hemery retired to respectable fame and fortune, later becoming president of the UK's athletics federation. John Akii Bua returned to a Uganda carving the name of its military "President", Idi Amin, into genocidal notoriety. This is a film about the pinnacle of athletic achievement - and the search to discover what followed.

Shalom Putti(2022)

A Fork, a Spoon & a Knight(2015)

An inspiring creative documentary that follows the story of one of Uganda's unsung heroes - Robert Katende. Popularly known as 'Coach Robert', he was able to transform a little unknown slum in the outskirts of Kampala, into an internationally recognized army of Chess Champions.

The Ugandan Quidditch Movement(2023)

In Uganda, a new sport is driving social change. The sport is quidditch.