ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS: 1. Production information It was supposed to be a wild adventure in a far-off country, but when a naive young doctor arrives in 1970’s Uganda – hoping for fun, sun and to lend a helping hand --he finds himself instead on a shocking ride into the darkest realm on earth: the human heart. 2. Into a Dictator’s Heart of Darkness: The Story of THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND How would you respond to the seductive influence of power? Would you bend or forget your own moral code to achieve it? What happens to someone who starts with good intentions and ends up becoming a blood thirsty individual? 3. A Man of Shocking Extremes and Contradictions: Forest Whitaker Portrays Idi Amin There are few names in history as recognizable as Idi Amin. He has joined Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Sadam Hussein, among others, in the ranks of dictators who seemingly knew no human bounds. But Amin was also a unique case – a one-time boxer and soldier who climbed his way up from literally nothing, charmed the nation with his vibrant pride and personality and appeared to many to be a newly independent Uganda’s greatest hope for becoming a truly African nation. 4. A Fun-Loving Young Doctor Trapped in a Nightmare: James McAvoy as the Fictional Nicholas Garrigan Just as important as the role of Idi Amin to THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND is the wholly opposite part of the fun-loving young doctor who has no idea what he’s getting into when he agrees to become Amin’s personal physician. 5. Two Women in Idi Amin’s Uganda: Gillian Anderson and Kerry Washington Join The Cast Even before Nicholas Garrigan becomes involved with Idi Amin, he is stirring up the pot – starting a sexual affair with the mission clinic doctor’s beautiful and lonely wife, Sarah 6. Into Kampala: Shooting in Uganda Most of THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND was shot in and around Kampala, Uganda, in a city that has seen more than its share of troubles in recent years, yet today is one of Africa’s most bustling and unique urban centers --built on seven fertile hills and lined with examples of stunning modern architecture. 7. Probing the Scars of The Past: Ugandans Respond to THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND Though he left Uganda in 1979 for exile in Saudi Arabia and passed away in 2003, Idi Amin’s legacy continues to reverberate strongly in Uganda. Nearly every citizen of the country was changed in some way by his rule, so at first, Kevin Macdonald worried about rousing emotions and memories better left untouched. 8. The Facts Behind the Fiction: About Idi Amin’s Uganda THE LAST KING OF A SCOTLAND is a fictional thriller --but behind the suspense lies the very real story of Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin.

Into a Dictator’s Heart of Darkness: The Story of THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

How would you respond to the seductive influence of power? Would you bend or forget your own moral code to achieve it? What happens to someone who starts with good intentions and ends up becoming a blood thirsty individual? These are the questions raised by the gripping thriller THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, which takes audiences on a heart-stopping journey inside the world of one of the most fascinating and frightening leaders of all time: Idi Amin, famed for his electrifying magnetism, yet whose brutal rule left as many as a half million of his countrymen dead.

The film also marks the first wholly dramatic film from Oscar®-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald. Renowned for his suspenseful filmmaking, Macdonald’s previous two films were the breathtaking tale of mountain survival, TOUCHING THE VOID, and the Academy Award®-winning ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, a searing examination of the terrorist incident at the Munich Olympics. When Macdonald read Giles Foden’s prize-winning, fact-inspired novel, The Last King of Scotland, he felt immediately that it had all the high-wire tension of a real-life tale of terror and survival --along with the human insight and textural richness of a fictional thriller.

“I saw it as a kind of classic story about a young man who sets out looking for adventure, gets far more adventure than he bargained for and, in the process, finds out who he really is,” Macdonald explains. “In some ways it could be a story about any tyrannical leader anywhere in the world, but I also found it compelling because no one has ever really a done a film like this about Africa.”

Macdonald continues: “I’ve always been drawn to projects that take audiences to new places, that expose them to worlds they’re unfamiliar with and the hope is that even if you’ve never heard of Idi Amin, you’ll leave THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND thinking ‘wow, now that’s opened my eyes to something.’”

Many eyes were opened when Giles Foden first published his novel in 1998, winning the prestigious Whitbread First Novel Award, a Somerset Maugham Award, a Betty Trask Award and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Foden, who moved from England to Africa when he was just five years old and grew up partly in Uganda, had long wanted to write a novel about the strange, terrifying regime of Idi Amin. At last, he found a way past the veils of mythology surrounding Amin and into the intimate heart of the dictator’s world – by creating a fictional young doctor who becomes Amin’s trusted friend and confidante, only to discover he is trapped in a realm that grows more violent and out of control every day.

Meshing Dr. Nicholas Garrigan’s fictional moral dilemmas with shocking real stories from Amin’s rule, Foden forged an exciting window not only into Uganda’s past but into the very question of how ordinary people react when faced with the worst acts of humanity. He titled the novel The Last King of Scotland after one of Amin’s grandiose names for himself. (Amin’s other extravagant titles for himself included “Conqueror of the British Empire” and “Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea.”)

When producer Lisa Bryer read Foden’s book, she saw it right away as having cinematic potential. “I felt it would fit right into the grand tradition of classic movie thrillers set against a real backdrop, such as SALVADOR and MISSING,” she says. “I thought it had universal appeal --anyone who loves a good story is going to be drawn into this one. It’s also very relevant, because you see this kind of history repeating itself today.”

Bryer’s partner, Charles Steel, was equally intrigued. “This is a timeless story of a young man going out to seek adventure, losing himself along the way and then finding redemption,” says Steel. “But it also coupled with this fantastic, revealing relationship -almost a love story -between Nicholas and Idi Amin, a kind of beauty and the beast tale.”

Bryer and Steel brought the idea to Andrea Calderwood, then head of drama at BBC Scotland, who helped to kick the project into high gear, eventually bringing in Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich of DNA and Tessa Ross of Film Four. Riveted by the subject matter, Calderwood was deeply committed to bringing the story to the screen, though she knew it would not be easy. “The story of THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND is so unique and it’s got so much resonance,” she says. “It’s not only really entertaining but also genuinely original, not a repeat of something we’ve all seen before. But at the same time, it’s quite daring in saying that Idi Amin was a human being --obviously a very flawed human being, but a human being.”

It took years to get the project off the ground but ultimately a page-turner of a screenplay resulted from the work of two leading British screenwriters, Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock. “The adaptation was very difficult,” notes Bryer.“You had to find a way to hold the audience’s compassion for Nicholas

Garrigan because he’s the one you have to follow into the world of this brutal dictator. Finding that delicate balance between a young man’s innocence and a madman’s arrogance and violence was the key.”

With the screenplay completed, the filmmakers searched for a director who would be willing to venture into wholly uncharted filmmaking territory in Uganda. Although relative newcomer Kevin Macdonald was a risk for a film that already was taking thematic chances, once he became involved, the producers knew he was a perfect match. “Kevin is extraordinary,” Bryer comments, “I’ve never worked with anyone like him. He’s so well read and bright and with his documentary background, his research is second to none. We couldn’t have made this film without him.”

There remained one potentially major challenge before production could start in earnest. Macdonald and the film’s producers all agreed it was essential to shoot the film in Uganda. But until recently, the country was largely off-limits to all but the boldest of Westerners and Idi Amin remains a controversial figure who can stir up dangerous emotions there. Furthermore, the country has no infrastructure for filmmaking and the project would require cooperation at the highest governmental levels. Would it even be possible? With trepidation, the filmmakers wrangled a meeting with the President of Uganda himself --Yoweri Museveni – hoping for his blessing.

“Everything hung on the meeting with President Museveni,” recalls Bryer. ‘We needed his full support both creatively and financially. After many weeks of negotiating with his office we managed to secure an audience. When the day came, John Nagenda, the President's Special Media Advisor, made sure we were all in our best dress and on our best behavior, then ushered us into a huge room with Ugandan flags flying. Kevin, the three producers, line producer Andrew Wood and Ugandan location manager Emily Mabonga were all lined up opposite eight ministers and officials and a beaming president, with TV cameras and press photographers covering the whole thing.”

Bryer continues: “Halfway through the meeting President Museveni asked me where my tribe came from. ‘Israel and South Africa Mr. President,’ I answered, hoping not to have blown the meeting. Two hours later we were all ushered out and told by his ministers that the President was not only incredibly happy to have us film in his country, but that he would give us the full use of his army, his parliament and his ministers!”

Macdonald was thrilled. “Everyone thought we were a bit crazy coming to Uganda to film, but I felt very strongly it was the only way to make this film,” he sums up. “Uganda has got a very unique feel to it, with its great modernist architecture from the 50s and the 60s, which you see in the Parliament building and the Mulago Hospital. I wanted to capture that different, more realistic image of Africa, which I think will surprise people. And once we arrived in Uganda, we were surrounded by history. Almost everyone we met had been deeply affected by the time of Idi Amin in some way. Being where it all happened made a massive difference.”

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A Man of Shocking Extremes and Contradictions: Forest Whitaker Portrays Idi Amin
There are few names in history as recognizable as Idi Amin. He has joined Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Sadam Hussein, among others, in the ranks of dictators who seemingly knew no human bounds.