Overview

IHAMBA is a powerful, character-driven documentary that traces the enduring connection between the Batwa tribe and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of southwestern Uganda. Once known as forest peoples, the Batwa were forcibly evicted from their homelands in the early 1990s when ihamba — the last remaining tract of forest — was gazetted as a national park for mountain gorilla conservation. In the decades since, the Batwa have faced extreme poverty, marginalization, and the erasure of their cultural identity. Despite a longing for their medicines, spiritual sites, and foods in the forest, attempts to re-enter the park are met with severe consequences, including fines, arrests, and even the threat of being killed.