Nairobi — IT IS NOT STRANGE THAT ANOTHER FILM, The Last King of Scotland, credited to the life and times of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is in the making, as Amin has always made good copy and footage.

Amin at one time or another reigned as Uganda's heavyweight boxing champion, declared himself a life president and invaded Tanzania over a territorial dispute. He put Uganda on the world map, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Three weeks ago, former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu was in Uganda to visit the Old Airport to commemorate the 29th death anniversary of his brother, Lt Col Yonatani Netanyahu, who died during the 1976 raid on the airport by Israel commandos to rescue Israeli nationals taken hostage in the hijacking of an Air France flight 139 by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Lt Col Yonatani was the commander of the rescue team and died in the operation. The film 90 Minutes at Entebbe is based on this incredible and successful rescue operation.

Several other movies have been made about Uganda, almost all revolving around Idi Amin.

It is not good to talk ill of the dead, but even in death, Idi Amin is still a dictator. He cannot let Ugandans use in peace the facilities he left behind or so students at Makerere University are beginning to think, as the latest Amin film is being shot there.

RECENTLY, A GROUP OF MAKERERE students went to the campus' Main Library only to find guns pointed at their faces. "You can't enter this place," said the gun-brandishing white security men.

"Why not?" the students asked. "We are shooting the The Last King of Scotland," they replied matter-of-factly.

The film, starring Forest Whitaker, as Amin is based on Giles Foden's award winning novel, The Last King of Scotland, on the life and reign of Idi Amin as president of Uganda. Part of the shooting is being done in Uganda, with several Ugandans having been cast in supporting roles.

But why would a film about a Ugandan dictator be named The Last King of Scotland?

Amin had a liking for Scots and the Scots loved him back, because he did not like their old enemies, the English. And for good measure, he even once dubbed himself King of Scotland. The novel and film thus take the title from the dictator's view of himself.

The novel is a blend of fact and fiction, based partly on interviews with people who were close to the former Ugandan dictator. James McAvoy plays Nicholas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor, who finds himself in Uganda by a twist of fate, to become Amin's personal physician.

DR GARRIGAN, AT FIRST flattered by his position, later wakes up to the reality of who his boss really is - a psychopath.

Amin and Garrigan find themselves fused into an irreversible collaboration, particularly for Garrigan, who struggles to maintain his self-image as a physician.

His close association with the dictator puts him in an unenviable position. He witnesses Amin's excesses and the story brings to the fore some of the dictator's actions.

"There are so many African stories to be told. It's a continent full of extremes and untapped cinematic potential. This story, in particular, has a continuing contemporary resonance," said producer Andrea Calderwood.

For the past two weeks, the crew and cast of The Last King of Scotland have been camped at Makerere University, shooting a number of scenes at the basketball court and the swimming pool - basketball was one of Amin's favourite games and he was also an ardent swimmer.

The dictator loved fast cars - he is said in the novel to have met Dr Garrigan in western Uganda, where he was racing in one of the national rallies. He crashed his car into a herd of cows and Garrigan treated him and he continued with the race. He rewarded him by appointing him his personal physician.

For all the brutality that his reign has been associated with, Amin's Uganda witnessed a few successes in certain aspects of social life that have been neglected by the regimes that came after his fall in 1979.

IT WAS DURING HIS TIME THAT Uganda was a force in continental football. In 1978, a year before he was deposed, Uganda reached the African Nations Cup final, losing 2-0 to Ghana. The Ugandan national football team has never made it to the finals of the continental soccer showpiece since.

It was also on Amin's watch that the 1972 Olympics in Munich saw Uganda John Akii Bua win the 400m final to break and set a new world record. Akii Bua's feat came within 18 months of Amin's presidency.

Amin was a lover of sports - boxing, basketball, rallying, soccer and swimming.

Idi Amin, who called himself a pure son of Africa, but whose bizarre eight years as president of Uganda typified the continent's worst dictatorships, died on August 16, 2003 at the King Faisal Specialist hospital in Saudi Arabia. He was believed to be 80 years old.

Estimates say that between 100,000 to 500,000 people were killed or disappeared during his reign.

Even in death, Amin remains the most talked about Ugandan president. In his novel, The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum alludes to Idi Amin as the only person able to scare one of his toughest characters.

The Last King of Scotland is to be released in 2006.