The First Grader

The final film that I saw during the festival was The First Grader. It was super good and I can give the premise of this film pretty easily as well. Based on a true story, the film is set in Kenya and is about an 84 year old man who seeks to enroll in Grade One after the government announces the opportunity for free education for all.
This film is touching, inspiring, terrifying, funny and educational all in one go. There are so many messages that one could get out of this film. The screening that I attended was sold out. At the time of the screening, the film hadn't been picked up for wide-release, and I have no idea if it will. Obviously, I think it deserves it. Some parts were a little difficult to watch, and I'm not sure how some of the issues would be received by, umm, the UK. History is history, but there are many cases where history is either downplayed or attempted to be forgotten.
Director Justin Chadwick (of The Other Boleyn Girl) was in attendance, along with two of his producers. They did a great Q&A, which the TIFF people seemed to draw out as long as possible an even cut the end credits to do so. They don't usually do that, but I'm glad they did. We learned that the children were all from local Kenyan schools and about the process of how he was able to get them to "act" without actually coaching them on what to do. It seemed as though he often just put them in different situations and recorded their genuine reactions.
Having been to Kenya, I liked seeing some familiar landscapes and the film gave me a better understanding of some of the things that I only slightly heard about while I was there. I now have a better understanding of the history of Kenya, its culture and traditions. I specifically liked making further connections about my pretty basic understanding of the tribes and their relations in Kenya.
I really hope that this film gets wide-release. One audience member asked about if there was concern about how the film would be received in the UK, but the director said that he thought it was important to tell this story and that the British know what happened. He said that he (as a Brit) didn't know about it and even the Kenyans that he worked with on the film didn't know the story either.
This movie is pretty darn special. You'd think that the link to education would be most appealing to me (and it was the main reason why I'd picked the film in the first place), but I don't think that it was my favorite part of the movie. Of course I took lots of messages about education from the film, but it's those other lessons that I learned and the way the film wove its story together that I liked. Two thumbs up!
What a great way for me to end the festival!

- picture courtesy of www.tiff.net