A film to make you think

Abstract

Current estimates suggest that as many as 1.6 million children in Uganda have been orphaned by AIDS. This feature length documentary movingly portrays the plight of such children. It puts a human face on a tale of tragic enormity, taking us through orphanages and hospitals, across war-torn landscapes, and past shell torn homes. Originally intended as a pre-production research exercise, the film is shot entirely with handheld digital video cameras. It opens with a faxed invitation from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an agency raising awareness of the poverty in developing countries, to award winning Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. After a flood of statistics, we arrive in Uganda to witness real stories of suffering and disease. Early on in the film we enter a hospital next door to a warehouse busily constructing coffins. During a ward round of patients with AIDS we see a corpse being packed into an improvised cardboard coffin and being taken away on the back of a bicycle. There are constant reminders of the recent violent civil war. Inside 1 shell-damaged house, a grandmother cares for 35 children, the AIDS orphans of her 11 deceased children. On the buildings, Catholic inspired posters promote virginity as the only reasonable preventive medicine, while billboards advertise condoms to “make life's enjoyable moments safe ones.” We finally arrive at the main subject of the film, the Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans. Originally set up to deal with the orphans of the war, it now responds to the ever-escalating number of children orphaned by AIDS. We see widowed mothers enthusiastically learning to be self reliant through teachings on finance and work skills. We see happy faces both on the children who have become adopted by Westerners and on those who become supported by the collective efforts of the community. The landscape and scenes of everyday life dominate this film. As farmers, market traders, and housewives are seen going about their work, children keep popping up to play to the cameras. We see the crew coming to terms with electrical blackouts and tropical thunderstorms lighting up the wild terrain. Although the film lacks any in-depth interviews and commentary, we are left with a reason to believe in the efforts of the projects set up in Uganda and which depend on the continual support of the outside world.