Over the next few years, Phiona and her teammates find a way to travel to chess competitions (both national and international) and her skill continues to grow (to the befuddlement of many boys). Thus begins a familiar-feeling story of triumph and loss, lessons learned, and much else you might find in a movie about sports, competition, and a young prodigy. Things really get going when Phiona Mutesi (played by Ugandan native Madina Nalwanga) joins the group and Katende discovers her potential to be an absolutely killer chess player. These are kids too poor to be sent to school. Many of the chess hopefuls are young, small, or afraid to play soccer because their families couldn’t afford a doctor visit in case of injury.
Katende spends his afternoons coaching both soccer and teaching chess for the children of Katwe. It seems like an unlikely breeding ground for chess champions, but Robert Katende ( David Oyelowo, Selma) has something to say about that. Baths happen sometimes and sometimes they don’t. Boys of questionable intent race by on boda bodas. It’s a beautiful film, filled with color, style and the pops of vibrancy that make up the people and culture of Katwe.Ĭhildren sell maize in the streets, into car windows.
This newest effort of Indian director Mira Nair ( The Reluctant Fundamentalist) was largely filmed in the slums of Katwe, a region of south-central Uganda. I guess I’m musing on all of this to say that watching Queen of Katwe felt the tiniest bit familiar and beautiful in a way I wasn’t expecting. I’ve felt so lucky to have even a thin connection to such a vastly different part of the world to see photos of Rae’s visit to Lira to see her nephew and niece, to hear Suzan’s perspective on poverty and politics, to read Phil’s musings on community building. Suzan met the older brother of my college roommate Rachel while he was studying abroad in Uganda as of this writing, Suzan and Phil are living in Lira, married, with two gorgeous children, running an amazing organization called Solidarity Uganda.īecause Rae was not only my college roommate but is also my Harry Potter mentor, BFF, and pen pal, I follow all her exploits and basically her family is my extended family. I’ve never been anywhere in the vast continent of Africa, but someday I would like to visit Uganda.Ī little bit of my heart and brain has been invested there ever since my senior year of college, when I first met a beautiful lady named Suzan who hails from Lira in Northern Uganda.
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