Good Fortune

As this PBS P.O.V.-aired documentary makes clear, efforts to alleviate poverty in the developing world sometimes have unfortunate and unintended consequences. Producer-director Landon Van Soest focuses on two projects in Kenya that have sparked citizen opposition. In the densely populated shantytown of Kibera in Nairobi, the United Nations is partnering with the Kenyan government to tear down the shacks and move residents to high-rise housing units, but the deeply distrustful locals fear that officials will renege on their commitments, or they worry that the new homes will be unaffordable. With a midwife named Silva as the focal point, the film follows Kibera citizens as they attend women's support group and other meetings, and participate in unsuccessful attempts to vote out the national leadership. Meanwhile, far from Kibera, a farmer named Jackson and others from the Yala Swamp region are unhappy about an American entrepreneur's plan to flood cultivated fields and grazing land in order to develop a massive rice farm. Although the undertaking is sold as an attempt to strengthen the local economy and end hunger, the residents not only chafe under the heavy hand of what they perceive as meddling paternalism, but also protest the taking of their farmland and the use of pesticides that they claim are killing their cattle. DVD extras include deleted scenes. Prompting thoughtful consideration of both the limits of good intentions and the hazards of extending foreign aid without including input from those directly affected, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)