The first grader

Heart warming film about an 84 year old Kenyan man who turns up at a remote primary school in the Rift Valley asking to be educated, as the government had just introduced a policy of basic education for all. He struggles against local and national bureaucracy and politics, aided and abetted by the school teacher. There are some flashbacks to the period when he was a Mau-Mau revolutionary fighter, and the violent way in which that force was put down by the British army. It was based on a true story and the film was shot at a real school, and used the actual pupils rather than actors, which gave the film a genuinely warm feel. I saw the film at the London film festival.