Bobi Wine: The People’s President Documentary Shortlisted for Oscars.
The documentary, now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, follows the life of Uganda’s opposition leader, then-presidential candidate Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi), and his family through the struggle to become
the president of Uganda. The documentary has been shortlisted among the top fifteen Best Documentary Award finalists for the nominations in the 96th Academy Awards, scheduled for Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre in Ovation Hollywood.
The documentary has experienced incredible success recently, being nominated over fourteen times and winning five awards so far.
The film received three nominations at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards: Best Debut Director - Feature Documentary, Best Feature Documentary, and Best Editing.
Additionally, it earned a nomination at the Hamptons International Film Festival, where it scooped the Documentary Feature of 2022 award.
The film secured two awards at the Independent Film Festival of Boston 2023 and the DocAviv Film Festival 2023. It also received a nomination at the Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA) 2023 and two nominations each at the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival 2023 and the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards 2023.
The film was nominated at the Cinema Eye Honors Awards 2024 in the U.S. It competed for the Cinema Eye Honors Audience Choice Prize and Outstanding Production Award, and it received nominations for Outstanding Debut. It was also recognized as part of the 2023 Unforgettable Honorees.
The most recent accomplishment is winning the Best Feature Documentary Award at the recently concluded International Documentary Association Awards.
In this category, the documentary competes with several other outstanding documentaries, including:
- American Symphony
- Apolonia, Apolonia
- Beyond Utopia
- Bobi Wine: The People’s President
- Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
- The Eternal Memory
- Four Daughters
- Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
- In the Rearview
- Stamped from the Beginning
- Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
- A Still Small Voice
- 32 Sounds
- To Kill a Tiger
- 20 Days in Mariupol
While the final list of nominations is yet to be announced, we can only hope it makes it to the final nomination list.
By Martin Kabagambe