7 films to watch before volunteering in Africa

Release year: 2006
Director: Kevin Macdonald.
The country in which the events occur: Uganda.
Reference: Uganda is a country in Central Africa. Borders on Kenya, Sudan, Congo, Tanzania. The capital is Kampala.
About the film: A graduate of the Scottish Medical School Nicholas Harrigan goes to Uganda as a volunteer. By pure chance, he meets with President Amin and receives a tempting offer to become a personal doctor of the presidential family.

Naive maximalist Nicholas sincerely wishes to benefit his high-ranking friend and Ugandan medicine. However, the reality once again shows where the road paved with good intentions leads. You have to pay the highest price for naivety and indifference. The film is based on a book by Gilles Foden, based on real events. He received the award "Golden Globe" and the well-deserved Oscar.

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Release year: 2016
Director: Mira Nair
Country: Uganda.
Reference: The population of Uganda - 24.5 million people, almost fully engaged in agriculture. The main export industries are coffee, cotton, and tea.
About the film: Fiona - a girl from Ugandan slums - comes to a chess club at the Catholic mission. She dreams of free food, so she is ready not only to master the rules of an unfamiliar game but also to endure the cruel mockery of her peers.

Quite unexpectedly, a real chess talent is revealed to the girl from the slums. She is able to calculate the game eight moves ahead. The film is based on real events. Fiona Mutezi is to take part in many international chess championships and become the pride of Africa.

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Release year: 2001
Director: Caroline Link
Country: Kenya
Information: One of the safest countries on the continent, famous for national parks. In the east has access to the Indian Ocean. The capital is Nairobi. The population is 28.5 million people.
About the film: The film is based on the famous novel by Stephanie Zweig. In 1938, Yetel and her five-year-old daughter Regina flee from Nazi Germany to Kenya, where by that time their husband and father Walter Redlich had settled. Moving from comfortable Frankfurt to a lonely farm in arid savannah is not easy given to Walter and Yetel. But Regina is not just resigned to the circumstances - Kenya is becoming her second homeland. And Kenya in the film is really good, I want to see it with my own eyes. And after all, what is especially pleasant in our time is quite possible! The film Carolyn Link received twelve prestigious awards and an Oscar as the best film in a foreign language.

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Release year: 2004
Director: Pascal Plisson.
Country: Tanzania.
Reference: Tanzania consists of two parts - mainland and island (islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia). It has many neighbors: Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and the coast of the Indian Ocean in the east. In the north of Tanzania live representatives of one of the most famous peoples of Africa - the Masai.
About the film: For six years, the director of the film has become acquainted with the culture, traditions, customs and beliefs of the Masai Tanzania and Kenya. As a result, the aesthetic-ethnographic “fairy tale” was filmed, on the basis of which it is possible to study the process of the formation of primitive religions: a drought in savannah threatens with death to all villagers. For the rain to revive the land, the Masai warriors must find and kill the lion. Warriors, according to the customs of the Masai, are 14 years old. Because a group of noisy teenagers with spears goes in search of a mythical animal. The best, of course, died. Of course it started to rain. Masai, of course, colorful. At the end of the film, you cynically recall the seasonality of rain in Africa, national signs and hourly weather forecasts.

Release year: 2015
Director: Phillip Falardo
Country: Sudan
Reference: The largest state in Africa and the poorest on the planet. The population is 29.5 million people. The capital is Khartoum. Two deserts, clay plains, marshy lowlands and a narrow strip of fertile land along the Nile. Frequent droughts and a long-term war between Northern (Muslim) and Southern, professing Christianity and traditional African religions, Sudan.
About the film: Based on real events that happened in Sudan in 1983. After the attack of the soldiers of northern Sudan on the southern Sudanese village, only a few children between the ages of three and thirteen remain alive. To survive, the children go to Kenya. Their target is a refugee camp. They have to go 1260 km savannah. Not everyone will survive. And only after long years in a Kenyan slum town, some of them will be given a chance to change their lives. But is it easy to use this very chance?

Release year: 2005
Director: Michael Caton
Country: Rwanda
Reference: Rwanda is a country in central Africa where 12 million people live. The most populous country of the continent and one of the poorest. The basis of the economy is agriculture. The capital is Kigali. Since 1962, there has been a “chronic” conflict between two Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in the country.
About the film: The Catholic Mission in Kigali includes a church, a school and ... a base of UN peacekeepers. The idyllic atmosphere of open benevolence begins to change dramatically after the death of the President of the Republic. Foreseeing the aggravation of ethnic conflict under the protection of peacekeepers, families of the Tutsi people flock. Within a few hours, more than 2 thousand people gather at the mission. While representatives of Hutu massively cut their compatriots, the UN, as usual, express deep concern and discuss a burning topic: how does the act of genocide differ from genocide. And peacekeepers ordered to shoot dogs, devouring the corpses. Epidemiological safety is first of all! The film, based on real events and memories of survivors, will not appeal to many. Well, the cure for illusions is never sweet.

Release year: 2009
Director: Sherry Gorman
Country: Somalia.
Information: Independent state in northeast Africa. It borders with Ethiopia and Kenya, has access to the Indian Ocean. The capital is Magadishu. The population is 10 million people. Half of the population are nomads. Droughts and inter-clan conflicts constantly keep the country on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.
About the film: Filmed on the autobiographical book of Varis Drie. A thirteen-year-old nomad girl from Somalia should marry a man fifty years older. Upon learning of this, she runs away from home and on foot through the desert reaches Magadishu. Distant relatives send a teenager to London as a cheap domestic help for a local diplomat. A little later, the girl will have to find a job in a cold, foreign city without documents, education, and knowledge of the language. It will not take much time, and the Somali girl will become one of the most popular models in the world. The usual tale of Cinderella? As if not so. After all, this is only the beginning of the story.