This is, if I recall correctly, second time within a two years span, when I encounter a documentary about a people from the Third World countries touched by poverty. The last one I'm thinking about is the "Human" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. He portrayed rather unrelated, at least from the micro sense, individuals, economic immigrants or refugees from the North Africa/Near East, their struggling for... Understanding. It hit me hard back then through it's purity, unhidden emotions, directness and left a significant mark on my understanding of a globalization, geoeconomical problems. We have it all again in "Thank you for the rain". Julia Dahr focuses on the story of a man and his family, deep down in Kenya, affected and dependent on the climate. We see a man, day by day, struggling for a survival. Working according to a plan he has. Taking pro-active actions to convince members of his society to, as he sees, a common goal. To revert changes that so badly affected their lives. I truly admire him, he reminded me of a character played by Marcin Dorocinski in a polish movie "Roza" by Wojciech Smarzowski. The amount of bad, unpredicted, random things that happen to Kisilu is so underwhelming, that I couldn't believe in the constant optimism that he has. This is a man truly dedicated, responsible for his home, somewhere, in the middle of nowhere. Whereas in the "Human" voice of the unheard was amplified by the movie itself, Kisilu has, thanks to the active help from the director and Norwegian activists, the unique opportunity to speak about his experiences in front of the ONZ leaders in Paris. Well, maybe not a directly, but to some audience of journalists and activists. As he is acting as, so is willing to think of himself as a good father, he observes for the first time personalities, which he calls his fathers - after all they are deciding indirectly about the quality of his life. He observes them arguing about a thing that seems to be obvious, should be obvious. But we are not, generally, so organized, self-aware and non-complicated as the ants that appear in the movie before the flight to Paris. There is no specific conclusion. Of course, who would expect that. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that bit of political aspect in that documentary. It has definitely bigger portion of it, in a contrary to other mentioned. Nevertheless its another, much important exposition of the problems, which really are lost under the stack of trivial daily problems and TV information. We have no answer to that and what is even worse, in developed, semi-developed, developing countries, the awareness is so strikingly low. To note, film itself is very well composed. I like its, often, raw form and the fact that it was partially made by members of Kisilu's family by hand.

Had the opportunity to catch an early screening of Thank You For The Rain and the film was fantastic. Honestly just really well handled. Emotional, without being cloying. Serious, while also having a sense of humor.

From a technical perspective, the dichotomy between the masterfully shot Kenyan landscape and the hand-held videos provided by Kisilu serve to highlight the differing scales at play in the international community that the film is poking at. The audio is well mixed and the voice over helps to provide a pace to the film that carries through some of the more sparse scenes.

On the content side: the approach of starting at the local level and opening up a macro lens on the issue of climate change allows us to see how helpless those in agrarian communities are to the whims of the weather and how insulated those in the developed world are. By generating a conversation between those more vulnerable and those that have the political and economic means to alleviate the hardships arid- climate farmers face, perhaps this film will lead to broader change. I know that it's certainly changed my perspective!