“Africa United” attracts huge crowd

It has become a ritual for Goethe-Institut in Kigali, to screen free exciting movies every Tuesday. On the menu this week was Africa United – Rwanda’s Slumdog Millionaire.The cinema hall was already filled to the brim with movie fans before the movie started at 6:30p.m.Africa United is an interesting and funny road movie, in which three children take a wrong turn when heading to Kigali to audition for a warm-up act at the 2010 World Cup. There is an 11-year-old Aids orphan, who talks about the use of condoms and safe sex to his peers, his younger sister, who wants to become a doctor and a middle-class soccer star. They end up in the war-torn DR Congo, escape from an orphanage with a tough, traumatised fugitive child soldier and travel to South Africa for the opening match. On the way, they are joined by a resilient young sex worker, and the quintet bond on the hazardous journey. The middle-class lad throws his mobile phone into L. Tanganyika to break away from his mother; the child soldier casts his revolver into a river to signal his rejection of tribal violence. “This movie is the most amazing one I have watched ever since I started coming to this cinema, and I had heard about it but didn’t know it was this interesting and funny,” says Jade Nsenga, an international relations student at Mt. Kenya University.The show wrapped up with a brief address by the movie’s co-director, Eric Kabera, who received a long standing ovation before answering questions from the audience. “The movie cost us around $6 million and took about three years to produce,” said Kabera. “Though it was a co-production between the United Kingdom, Rwanda and South Africa, we also got funds from elsewhere and I am glad to say it was a success.”Title: Africa UnitedProduction year: 2010Country: UKRuntime: 88 minutesDirectors: Debs Gardner-Paterson, Eric Kabera Cast: Emmanuel Jal, Eriya Ndayambaje, Roger Nsengiyumva, Sanyu Joanita Kintu, Sherrie Silver and Yves Dusenge.

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“Africa United” attracts huge crowd