Like many documentaries, Jennifer Arnold’s A Small Act set out to tell the story of a past event with important implications for the present, but what the film uncovered along the way turned out to be more momentous than anyone involved could have imagined. A Small Act follows Chris Mburu, a Harvard educated Human Rights attorney for the United Nations working to establish a charitable education fund for children in his native Kenya. Mburu hopes to name the fund after the unknown benefactor who paid for his own education, and his search eventually leads to Hilde Back, a retired schoolteacher from Sweden who turns out to have a remarkable story of her own. Even as he struggles with bureaucratic hurdles and unexpected political developments in Kenya, Mburu’s connection with Back provides him the impetus to realize the project at any cost.

Presented as part of the Depth of Field 2011-2012 Series: Art and Culture in Transit(ion)

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