{"id":685984,"date":"2026-05-21T22:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/685984\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T22:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:00:12","slug":"today-in-history-may-22-dictator-hated-movie-so-much-he-took-200-people-hostage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/685984\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – May 22: Dictator hated movie so much, he took 200 people hostage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amin would give long diatribes to the camera about his bizarre theories about politics and economics.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/General Idi Amin was one of the cruelest dictators in modern history. (Le Figaro Films)<\/p>\n

He would also conduct army drills and stage mock assaults to demonstrate his military prowess.<\/p>\n

But Schroeder released two versions of the documentary \u2013 one to be shown in Uganda, and the other to be shown in the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Outside of Uganda<\/a>, Amin was seen as unpredictable, delusional and monstrous.<\/p>\n

In one scene, Amin told off a cabinet member.<\/p>\n

The documentary noted the politician would be found dead in a river two weeks later.<\/p>\n

But the suspicious Amin asked Libyan agents to watch the alternate cut of the movie in Britain and report back to him.<\/p>\n

When he found out how the movie depicted him, Amin was enraged.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The film was presented as a flattering hagiography in Uganda, but presented the truth elsewhere. (Le Figaro Films)<\/p>\n

He took almost 200 French nationals hostage in Uganda and gave them Schroeder’s home phone number in France.<\/p>\n

They were instructed to tell him they would not be released until he re-edited the documentary to Amin’s liking.<\/p>\n

Schroeder gave in and made the requested changes.<\/p>\n

It would not be until Amin was overthrown five years later that the full movie was re-released.<\/p>\n

The film had failed to capture just how evil the Amin regime was.<\/p>\n

In his eight years in power, Amin presided over the murders of as many as half a million Ugandans.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Barbet Schroeder had to re-edit the film to save the lives of 200 hostages. (Le Figaro Films)<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amin would give long diatribes to the camera about his bizarre theories about politics and economics. General Idi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-685984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}