Based on a true story: In Uganda a young girl Madina Nalwanga shows extraordinary chess playing skills, thought an unusual trait for girls and the poor. Encouraged and challenged to succeed by her brother and mentors, she hones her skills against chauvinistic boys, rich snobs, and international chess masters.
Directed by Mira Nair. Several lines of dialogue are in an Ugandan language with English subtitles. A husband kisses his wife briefly in two scenes. A man invites a woman to go to a hotel for dinner and nearly kisses her, but she pulls away and does not go with him. A year-old girl remarks sadly that men will be coming for her implied for prostitution. At age 14 a girl says that men will be coming after her soon, but this does not occur.
A single mother slaps her teen daughter in the face and tells her to go have children she cannot pay for, her daughter says, "Like you," and the mom says, "God sees what you do. Three preteen boys briefly appear shirtless. A woman slaps her teen daughter in the face and shouts at her for leaving her little brother, and then rips up some of the girl's clothing. A hospital official demands that a woman bring money to him and walks away; the woman yanks an IV needle from her son's hand, he yelps and she and his pre-teen sister help him to stand and stumble as the family flees into the streets.
A single mom of four is exhausted and irritable all the time, having to sell corn on the streets with her two pre-teen children to earn a living; her children seldom are able to eat.
A woman with her son, daughter, and toddler son is next shown stumbling in a street during the night and they sleep in an alley on packing crate-like materials. A teen girl and her mother argue about chess and chores. Several arguments occur between elementary school-aged boys and a girl; some disagreements becoming heated. A woman remarks to another woman on a street that a certain boy kicks girls; the second woman walks out to a stopped motorcyclist and kicks him hard in one thigh he grunts , telling him to stay away from her teen daughter, and then she turns around and shouts at her teen daughter and the man rides away.
