![]() ![]() The family is eking out a hand-to-mouth living by selling ears of corn in the streets, and Harriet has other problems, like her eldest daughter Night and Night's habit of riding around on a motorcycle with a thoughtless young man named Theo. Meanwhile, Phiona's mother Harriet (Nyong'o), is occupied with the desperate struggle of day-to-day life in the slums of Katwe, raising four children as a single mother after the death of her husband. Mira Nair’s inspirational chess drama Queen of Katwe is remarkable in the simplest but most profound way: it’s an American film about Africa that doesn’t feel like it was made by tourists. Katende realizes that Phiona is a chess prodigy. Soon she is beating all the other kids in Katende's club. ![]() Phiona cleans up, enters the club, and learns the game. Phiona tries to enter the club, but the other kids make fun of her because she smells bad-Phiona and her family live in a shack without running water. Katende has started a chess club as an activity for the youth of the neighborhood. Into this slum comes Robert Katende (Oyelowo), who works for a Catholic mission. Phiona is a pre-teen girl living in Katwe, a desperately poor slum neighborhood in Kampala, Uganda. It is based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi (Nalwanga). It stars David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong'o, and Madina Nalwanga. An unlettered girl who sells maize in the local market to help her widowed mother feed a family of four, she takes time out to hone her skills.Queen of Katwe is a 2016 film from Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Mira Nair. Her prodigal elder sister tells her: "I don't think God cares about us one way or another." Her coach and guardian angel, in contrast, exhorts her to "follow your plans, you'll find your safe squares." Doubts and misgivings are strewn all across her path. It isn't, however, an easy transition for Phiona. It then jumps back to 2007, the year it all began for the innately gifted slum girl. Queen of Katwe opens with a tense Phiona Mutesi about to make her first move in the final of the Ugandan junior chess championship in 2011. #MIRA NAIR QUEEN OF KATWE MOVIE#Ugandan dancer Madina Nalwanga makes a felicitous movie debut in the titular role. Kenyan-raised Lupita Nyong'o, a known face both in Hollywood and Broadway, essays the role of Nakku Harriet, Phiona's spirited mother who keeps the family afloat in the face of heavy odds. ![]() Hollywood star David Oyelowo, a British actor of Nigerian descent, plays Robert Katende, an engineer who sacrifices his career to help chess flourish in one of Uganda's worst urban slums. In many ways, Queen of Katwe is the Ugandan equivalent of Mira's Cannes Camera d'Or winner Salaam Bombay but for the infinitely more positive take on life that is at its heart. Queen of Katwe is the first US studio film in a long, long while that has no Caucasian actors and tells a story set in a part of the world that rarely gets showcased on the big screen for global consumption. Not only did the uplifting tale of courage and tenacity leave the audience here feeling warm and fuzzy, it also underlined in no uncertain terms the power that 'diversity' can impart to American cinema. Her rapid progress in the game helps her turn her own and her mother's life around.Īt its world premiere in the 41st Toronto International Film Festival, Queen of Katwe touched an instant chord with the audience, a sure sign that it should be in the mix as Oscar season approaches. Queen of Katwe, based on a 2012 book by sports journalist Tim Crothers, tells the story of a teenager from a Kampala shantytown who discovers chess under the tutelage of a remarkable talent-spotter. Queen of Katwe is Mira's first film that is set entirely in Uganda, which has been her home for over two and a half decades.īack in 1991, a part of the critically acclaimed Mississippi Masala, top-lined by Denzel Washington, was filmed in the east African country.Ī classic underdog tale, Queen of Katwe is a fine combination of controlled storytelling, emotional energy and magnificently calibrated performances from a cast led by David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o. In both style and substance, the film is a perfect encapsulation of the spirit of its young protagonist and the rhythms of the hard life of the people of Katwe, an impoverished part of the Ugandan capital Kampala. The heart-warming and inspiring sports biopic makes the right moves from start to finish in bringing the incredible true story of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi to the big screen. Mira Nair's latest opus, Queen of Katwe, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and ESPN Films, is as important a film as any that the much-feted Indian-born director has ever made. The film stars David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o.Mira Nair's Queen of Katwe had its premiere at TIFF 2016. ![]()
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