A Small Act

A Small Act

A Small Act

Watch Trailer Watch Movie

Share

A Small Act

"A single gesture. Limitless possibilities."

2010

1h 28m

8.2(5 votes)

Documentary

Overview

A young Kenyan's life changes drastically when his education is sponsored by a Swedish stranger. Years later, he founds his own scholarship program to replicate the kindness he once received.

Where to Watch

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

HBO Documentary Films

Videos & Trailers

1 video

Similar Movies

After the Revolution

A wry look at the effects of sexual repression on lesbian and gays in former Czechoslovakia. After the Revolution explores the impact of the new gay movement, combining personal accounts and rarely seen propaganda film. After 40 years of totalitarian silence about sexuality, lesbian, gay and transsexual contributors reveal how they reacted to exclusion from communist norms of heterosexuality and parenthood, including in the case of some women, by changing sex.

Monk with a Camera

Monk with a Camera

Nicholas Vreeland walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Grandson of legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and apprentice of photographer Irving Penn, Nicholas' life changed drastically upon meeting one of the Dalai Lama's teachers. Soon thereafter, he gave up his glamorous life to live in a monastery in India, ultimately returning to his roots in photography to help his fellow monks rebuild their monastery.

Out in the Night

Out in the Night

Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.

Uncle Yanco

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me

I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me

This insightful Home Box Office documentary profiles some American children afflicted with Tourette's syndrome -- a hereditary neurological disorder manifested by recurrent, involuntary vocal and motor tics. More than a dozen youngsters ranging from ages 6 to 13 discuss the stigma of Tourette's, what it's like to grow up with the condition, control measures and the challenges they face to be viewed as normal.

Summer of Love

Summer of Love

American Experience presents Summer of Love, a striking picture of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district during the summer of 1967 -- from the utopian beginnings, when peace and love prevailed, to the chaos, unsanitary conditions, and widespread drug use that ultimately signaled the end. Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco (Daughter from Danang) examine the social and cultural forces that sparked the largest migration of young people in America's history.

Quiet Riot: Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back

Quiet Riot: Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back

An inspiring documentary chronicling the rise, fall and resurrection of '80s metal band Quiet Riot. The career of Frankie Banali, the band's drummer, reached a serious crossroads when his best friend and bandmate died in 2007. Years later, Banali realizes he must forge ahead and make a new life for himself and his daughter and he goes on a quest to reunite the band and fill the immense void left by his bandmate.

The Oldest LESBIAN in the World!

The Oldest LESBIAN in the World!

Nearing 100 years old, a national treasure, Bobby Staff whimsically exposes a rare and revealing insight into the romantic life of a butch lesbian born in 1913. Accompanied by her long time friend, Sweet Baby J'ai, Bobbie takes us on a trip down a very steamy memory lane, through photographs and vivid memories of many decades living her life as an out lesbian in New York City and Los Angeles.

Underwater Dreams

Underwater Dreams

Underwater Dreams, narrated by Michael Peña, is an epic story of how the sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants learned how to build underwater robots. And go up against MIT in the process.

Microcosmos

Microcosmos

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

Changing the Conversation: America's Gun Violence Epidemic

Re-framing the U.S. gun violence debate from Second Amendment rights to public health prevention.

The Collector: Allan Stone's Life in Art

The Collector: Allan Stone's Life in Art

Olympia Stone presents a cinematic portrait of her father, famed New York City gallery owner and art collector Allan Stone, in this fascinating documentary tracing his rise in the international art world from the 1950s to 2006. Regarded as a pioneering collector, Allan Stone was considered an expert on the work of Abstract Expressionists, particularly Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline.

Ouaga Girls

Ouaga Girls

A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.

O Seasons, O Castles

O Seasons, O Castles

A short documentary on the chateaux of the Loire in France was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau.

Judgement in Hungary

Judgement in Hungary

Hungary was the site of serial murders on ethnic basis. Over the course of one year, the murderers killed and seriously injured Roma children and adults. The state charged 4 men with committing the crime with racial motivation. This historical trial started March, 2011, and ended August, 2013 in Budapest. The 167 days of hearings was only documented continuously by our crew. We had exclusive permission to use multiple cameras in the court-room. The film is a classical chamber-drama, taking place in a small, claustrophobic court room, in the middle of Europe. What will be the outcome of the marathon, 3 year-long trial?

Time

Time

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

Visions of Europe

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

The Cats of Mirikitani

The Cats of Mirikitani

Documentary about red-bereted Jimmy Mirikitani, a feisty painter working and living on the street, near the World Trade Center, when 9/11 devastates the neighborhood. A nearby film editor, Linda Hattendorf, persuades elderly Jimmy to move in with her, while seeking a permanent home for him. The young woman delves into the California-born, Japan-raised artist's unique life which developed his resilient personality, and fuel his 2 main subjects, cats and internment camps. The editor films Jimmy's remarkable journey.

Esculturas Rupestres

Esculturas Rupestres

"Esculturas Rupestres" (Rupestrian Sculptures) was made in Jaruco Park outside of Havana. The low relief sculptures that resembled petroglyphs, were influenced by Ana Mendieta’s interest in the indigenous Taíno people of Cuba.

Uranium Drive-In

A new uranium mill -- the first in the U.S. in 30 years -- would re-connect the economically devastated rural mining community of Naturita, Colorado, to its proud history supplying the material for the first atomic bomb. Some view it as a greener energy source freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil, while others worry about the severe health and environmental consequences of the last uranium boom.

Recommended Movies

Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War

Following the events of Age of Ultron, the collective governments of the world pass an act designed to regulate all superhuman activity. This polarizes opinion amongst the Avengers, causing two factions to side with Iron Man or Captain America, which causes an epic battle between former allies.

Ex Machina

Ex Machina

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Barbie

Barbie

Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.

Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder's Justice League

Determined to ensure Superman's ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne aligns forces with Diana Prince with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions.

Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.

PK

A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

1917

1917

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

Joker

Joker

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

John Wick

John Wick

Ex-hitman John Wick comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.

Deadpool

Deadpool

The origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who, after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

Jojo Rabbit

Jojo Rabbit

Jojo, a lonely German boy during World War II has his world shaken when he learns that his single mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home. Influenced by a buffoonish imaginary version of Adolf Hitler, he begins to question his beliefs and confront the conflict between propaganda and his own humanity.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange

After his career is destroyed, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon gets a new lease on life when a sorcerer takes him under her wing and trains him to defend the world against evil.

Black Mass

Black Mass

The true story of Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator and the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston, who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his turf.

The Two Popes

The Two Popes

Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict. Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Harley Quinn joins forces with a singer, an assassin and a police detective to help a young girl who had a hit placed on her after she stole a rare diamond from a crime lord.

Soul

Soul

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.

Inside Out

Inside Out

When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Everything Everywhere All at Once

An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes.

The Edge of Seventeen

The Edge of Seventeen

Two high school girls are best friends until one dates the other's older brother, who is totally his sister's nemesis.