Queen of Katwe

Director: Mira Nair

2016 / 124min / DCP

A ray of hope shines into the hardscrabble life that 10-year-old Phiona (Madina Malwanga) shares with her mother (Lupita Nyong’o) and siblings in Katwe, a slum neighborhood in Kampala, Uganda, when Phiona meets missionary program teacher Robert Katende (David Oyelowo). By teaching Phiona the game of chess, he sets her on a path that will take her to the game’s 2010 Olympiad in Russia. Based on the story of Phiona Mutesi, as told in Tim Crothers’s nonfiction book of the same name, Nair’s kid-friendly tale of perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds is distinguished by a rare level of authenticity and even rarer absence of sentimentality—and also features a soundtrack contribution (and on-screen cameo) by a young man by the name of Zohran Mamdani.

Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures / 20th Century Fox

Part of Screen Time at Metrograph