First Grader, The (2010)

Director Justin Chadwick

Shot on location in Kenya, and using many local nonprofessionals both behind the camera and as actors, Justin Chadwick’s (The Other Boleyn Girl) stirring drama turns the obstinate desire for an education on the part of 84-year-old Kikuyu tribesman Maruge (unforgettably played by Oliver Litondo) into a deeply affecting and emotionally uplifting tale. Taking advantage of a 2002 Kenyan law that guaranteed free education for all, Maruge—a veteran Mau Mau freedom fighter who suffered at the hands of the British imperialist rulers—shows up at his local one-room school, walking stick in hand, and is reluctantly turned away by the sympathetic principal (Naomie Harris). But Kimani returns the next day, and the day after that, until his eventual acceptance. Director Chadwick intersperses scenes of Kimani’s burgeoning education with flashbacks to the harsh treatment he received from the British. The effect is very moving and ultimately hopeful; despite Kenya’s—and by extension, Africa’s—troubled past, humanity, here in the form of one aged tribesman, refuses to give up. - Seattle International Film Festival