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 word for “forest” in the local language— was gazetted as a national park for mountain gorilla conservation. Since then, they have endured extreme poverty, cultural erasure, criminalization, and even death for attempting to return to their ancestral lands to access food, medicine, and spiritual sites. 

Told through the voices of Batwa elders, youth, and community leaders, IHAMBA is a story of memory, resilience, and resistance. Through intimate interviews, lyrical visuals, and collaborative storytelling, the film explores what was lost when the Batwa were removed from their homeland, and what still survives in the stories and dreams of those determined to keep their heritage alive. Co-created with Batwa storytellers, it challenges exclusionary conservation and calls for a future where Indigenous rights and stewardship thrive together.