Being Human
Orphans of Mathare
Documentarian Lisa Seidenberg follows several English human rights activists as they campaign for the right to be naked in public. Seidenberg constructs a funny, perceptive, and often moving portrait of a people marginalized and often ridiculed by mainstream society.
Winner of the Rosa Luxemburg Award, this moving documentary follows the lives of several children now living at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home in the Mathare slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Orphaned by AIDS or runaways from abusive parents, the children lived on the streets, sniffing glue, foraging through trash for food, and sleeping under cars until they were brought to the Home. The film follows them as they go to school, struggle with the poverty and violence that surrounds them, and reflect on their former lives. As it does so, it lays bare the many factors that comprise the massive orphan crisis in Kenya, from poverty and AIDS to the unyielding customs of native tradition and conservative Christianity.