Charting the ripple effects of real compassion, this inspiring true story follows a spirited young New Zealander’s search for the Rwandan samaritan who assisted him through a dangerous predicament over ten years before.
Rwanda may be forever haunted, but life goes on, and its people deserve to be seen as more than just victims and executioners.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2015
Act of Kindness 2015
In 1999, Sven Pannell, a Kiwi traveller in Africa, escaped from a perilous run-in with rebel soldiers, bargaining for his life with a wad of cash he had hidden in his boot. Broke and without any place to stay, Pannell came across a crippled, homeless samaritan named Johnson, who fed and sheltered him until he was able to flee the region. He left in such a hurry he never got the chance to thank him.
A decade later, Pannell returned to Rwanda with the hope of doing just that. Armed with a camera and a surfeit of optimistic pluck, he launches a dogged hunt for the man who generously came to his aid all those years ago – plastering up flyers, searching through registries, even broadcasting his compelling testimony to millions via Rwandan radio.
Throughout this affecting chronicle, Pannell and co-director Costa Botes capture an intimate, grassroots portrait of a nation’s resilience and compassion, observing the will of a people who’ve refused to be defined by the horrors of their tumultuous history. — JF