Movie Review: The First Grader & Africa United
Our friend Monica purveyor of all good things in the cine-media field will join us for a review on the happenings about the film scene in Africa. As a film enthusiast and an organiser working with the Philadelphia Film Fest, we relish in her knowledge of seeking obscure films from the continent and delight that she is able to share with us.
Two African films made the list to be featured in the London Film Festival which opens on October 13th with the anticipated ‘Never Let me Go’ by Mark Romanek and featuring festival favourites, Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky) with 127 Hours (Danny Boyle) closing the festival.
Of the African Films, one, is The First Grader, directed by Justin Chadwick. It’s the story of an ex-mau mau (ex-freedom fighter) and first 80-year-old first grader, Maruge. Read more here from a recent post on my blog.
The second, Africa United directed by Debs Gardner-Paterson is a film that follows four protagonists, all below the age of fourteen that travel from Rwanda to South Africa for the World Cup. The idea for the film came from Eric Kabera, whose own experience as a filmmaker would make a great study. He began the Rwanda Cinema Center and the Rwanda Film Festival. Also on the Maisha Film Lab board of directors, his own films have been featured in noted festivals all over the world. Some of themes tackled in the film are child prostitution, Aids and civil war are in a sense, a homage to the history of African cinema, which centered heavily on PSAs and Documentaries. What I can tell from the trailer and reviews is that this is just the backdrop in which the story takes place. The similarities in context, with Slumdog Millionare may be unintentional, but Pathe’ Films, an international production and distribution company found the link, and are banking on this x-factor to facilitate the film’s potential for international sales. It will be opening in October in the UK and France, Pathe’s primary market.
Production of this film was possible partly because of the UK Film Council.
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The Kenyan Princess
African Film and Filmmakers: the postcolonial, Gen-Y perspective
The First Grader (2010) screened at Telluride
September 10, 2010
During my first year of college, Kenya began providing free education for Primary (1st to 8th grade/ year) school. This gesture was an election promise that was held up without the actual infrastructure to make it happen. The success or failure of this project would make for great study, but the reason I bring it up is one Kimani Maruge.
The story ran for weeks on local news channels, about an ex-mau mau (freedom fighter) that enrolled for the first grade or standard one, at the age of 80, all thanks to free Primary education. It was a sort of cinderella story, with his declaration of working his way up to Law School cheered in every home watching the 7 o’clock news. It was the start of many adventures for Maruge, one of which was presenting a paper to the UN Millenium Development Summit on the importance of primary education. He had less than two years to complete Primary School when he died in 2009.
A production by Sixth Sense, Origin Pictures, BBC Films, the currently endangered UK Film Council and Kenyan Blue Sky Films, a film chronicling his life was programmed in the prestigious and exclusive Telluride Film Festival in Colorado that happened over the weekend. The film, “The First Grader” was shot in Kenya and the UK, and is starring Naomi Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean). The cast is majorly Kenyan, and I’m excited about recognizing most of the cast (You Go Guys!). I won’t move on without mentioning theater heavyweights John Sibi Okumu and Mumbi Kaigwa.
Right, moving on.
The Director, Justin Chadwick, is best known for ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ (Portman/ Johansson/ Bana), and for my own satisfaction, a successful adaptation of Dicken’s ‘Bleak House’ starring X-Files’ Gillian Anderson for BBC.
Screenwriter, Ann Peacock, was born and raised in South Africa, and went to school and taught in the University of Cape Town. Her screenplays include most notably ‘Chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe’, Kit Kittredge and Nights in Rodanthe (Richard Gere).
In short, if you get to chance to see this, Don’t miss it!
Love,
KP.