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Sarah Masters reviews
A Small Act
Swedish Holocaust survivor Hilde Back’s seemingly miniscule gesture of generosity created a ripple effect that has saved the lives of dozens of Kenyan children mired in hopeless poverty. The film, A Small Act, tells the story of how Hilde’s small monthly donations provided for the education of Kenyan Christopher Mburu. Years later, Mburu returned the favor. While serving as coordinator of the UN anti-discrimination unit, he started the Hilde Back Education Fund in her honor, which provides many impoverished African children the golden opportunity to attend a secondary school.
It is an elegant story: a Holocaust survivor funds the education of a boy who grows up to fight genocide through the United Nations. Filmmaker Jennifer Arnold follows three young Kenyan children who strive for a Hilde Back scholarship to secondary school. Kimani, Ruth, and Caroline must achieve qualifying standardized test scores while keenly aware that an education is the only way that they and their families will ever escape poverty.
The obstacles these children face seem insurmountable. In one moving scene, Kimani throws his book across the room when his only candle stub for evening study quickly burns out. Village children taunt Caroline for being so poor that her family needs to live on school grounds so that she can attend. Neighbors and family require Ruth to work in the fields during harvest in the critical study review period before the national exams are administered.
Hilde Back never knew the young man whose education she supported until he set out years later for Sweden to locate her.
A Small Act is an excellent teaching tool, as it slowly reveals how one act of kindness yields another. In the words of Hilde Back, “If you do something good, it can spread in circles like rings on the water.”
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Completed: 2010
Running Time: 84 minutes
Director/Producer: Jennifer Arnold
Producers: Patti Lee & Jeffrey Soros
Executive Producer: Joan Huang
A Small Act is currently in theatrical release. For information regarding screenings, go to http://www.asmallact.com/
Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to production, cultivation, support and distribution of the best documentaries on world religions and spirituality.
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