Review by Jane O’Connor
UK cert 12A | Runtime 88 minutes | Written and directed by Jennifer Arnold
An official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, this charming feature documentary tells the story of one small act and its far-reaching consequences.
Hilde Back is a Jewish refugee means who lost her family as a child during WW2 before being helped into Sweden where she has lived ever since. Hilde wanted someone else to experience the acceptance and support she did so she decided to sponsor a Kenyan child. This decision was a catalyst for change. The child she sponsored was Chris Mburu, a Harvard graduate who now works as a Human Rights Lawyer for United Nations.
Inspired by Hilde’s generous act Chris set up the Hilde Back Education Fund, a Scholarship programme which selects the brightest children to sponsor. The selection process is tough; a minimum score of 380 at the National KCPE test (leaving Primary school test) is required to be eligible for Chris’s scholarship.
The poignancy of the film’s message is important but a good documentary has to be gripping in some way too. A Small Act is immensely watchable and has some palpably tense moments. This is particularly so when we meet Kimani, Ruth and Caroline, three village children from Mukubu Primary school whose hopes and dreams – and that of their family – are tied up in winning the Scholarship.
It is all too clear that if they fail there is little option but to return to the spiral of poverty and despair that they and their family are so desperate to escape. The pressure on the children to achieve 380 is overwhelming and the family wait anxiously for the results with the children. “I could have done better than that” one disappointed Grandmother tells her Grandchild when his test results filter through.
Filmed during political unrest in the country the film’s message about education and its central role in counteracting violence and conflict is all the more salient. Hilde now lives alone in a flat in Sweden but is regularly visited by Chris who, when he first met her was surprised to find that this feisty woman who paid for his education was of modest means herself. Hilde’s own words sum up the film’s message in a nutshell: “If you do something good, it can spread in circles, like rings on the water.”