Kenya: Left Behind (Africa's youngest victims)
35 minutes, 2005
Ref: 378

This award winning documentary is the heartbreaking tale of children in Kenya, orphaned and ravaged by the disease that's sweeping a continent. "Left Behind" is the work of a young American filmmaker who spent 8 months volunteering in a Children's Home outside Nairobi. He was so moved by the children he met, so intrigued by their forthright discussion of the virus that's killing them, he decided to commit their stories to film. Outside the Home, he ventured into the slums of Kibera, to see how AIDS has affected children there. He found a community clutched by the disease: prostitute widows selling unprotected sex in order to feed their children, AIDS-stricken fathers sick about leaving their little ones behind. And he found the kids who have no parents, now living by their wits on the slums' mean streets. Starved of food, love and knowledge of AIDS prevention, many of these kids are already beginning to have sex themselves. "Left Behind" has won several awards, and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.