Black Pinocchio

Marco Baliani, the Italian theatre director and playwright, approached the African Medical & Research Foundation in 2001 with the idea of using drama to help street children return to a normal life. The work that would help him in this was Collodi's fairytale about a boy made of wood who wanted to become a real boy – Pinocchio. With a copy of the book and plenty of doubts about whether he could succeed, Baliani set off for Nairobi, where he was awaited by a group of boys who allowed themselves to be lured by the promise of food and a roof over their heads. Just as Pinocchio had first to learn to walk, so the boys in Nairobi had to learn to control their movements, mastering the ability to curb their aggression and channel it as energy in dance. Pinocchio did not have an easy time as he went along, and there was no one but the "dad" who had carved him that recognized his right to life as a real person. After the first few lessons the children start to grasp their affinity with Pinocchio and not rarely they surprise their instructors with their own ideas on how to convert the fairytale into the most authentically possible theatrical rendering of the story. The documentary follows the first three years of the project. With each new lesson its actors are closer to being transformed from wild, hungry vagabonds without a future into children who are no longer forced to survive from day to day.

The partner of the screening is human rights documentary film festival One World