The First Grader (2010) on Netflix
In 2003, Kenya announces free primary education. Kimani Maruge, an 84-year-old former Mau Mau fighter, asks to learn to read at his village school, where principal Jane Obinchu takes him in.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.4/105,085 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
A radio disc jockey announces that the Kenyan government will provide free primary education to natives who can prove their citizenship with a birth certificate. Kimani Maruge, an 84-year-old villager, hears the broadcast and goes to his local school, where he tells the principal, Jane Obinchu, that he wants to learn to read. A teaching colleague, Alfred, ridicules him and demands he leave. Jane's husband, Charles, discourages her from supporting him. Maruge joins a class of six-year-olds, and memories of his years fighting the British in the Mau Mau Uprising return to trouble him. Word spreads that an elderly man has enrolled, and the story becomes national news, drawing the disapproval of the school district superintendent, Mr. Kipruto.
Cast
- Nick Redingas Officer Johnson
- Oliver Litondoas Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge
- Alfred Munyuaas Teacher Alfred
- Kamau Mbayaas Kamau Chege
- Agnes Simaloias Agnes
- Emily Njokias Young Maruge's Wife
- Lwanda Jawaras Young Maruge
- Dan 'Churchill' Ndambukias DJ Masha (as Daniel Ndambuki 'Churchill')
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The First Grader (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film is inspired by Kimani Maruge, a Kenyan farmer who enrolled in elementary school at the age of 84 after the Kenyan government announced free universal primary education in 2003 under Emilio Mwai Kibaki, the third president of the Republic of Kenya.
- The film's epilogue states that at 84 Maruge was the oldest person to start primary school according to the Guinness Book of World Records, and that he was invited to speak before international leaders at the UN in New York about the power of education.
- US-based producer Sam Feuer found the story on the front page of the LA Times and optioned the rights, then with producing partner Richard Harding partnered with BBC Films and hired Ann Peacock to write the screenplay.
- The film was shot on location in Kenya's Rift Valley despite earlier reports that it would be made in South Africa; director Chadwick said they could have shot it in South Africa, but Kenya had an unbelievable, inexplicable energy in the children and the people they were making the film about.
