"Some nasty things live under rocks, especially in foreign gardens." This famous line from British author John Le Carré's "Constant Gardener" became a focal point for the film adaptation, which is another u+a Best Film Award winner. u+a congratulates Fernando Meirelles of "City of God" fame for synchronizing Le Carré's passionate cries for Africa's relevance on a global scale to a visually charged cinematic experience.

The film is a rarity in many aspects. For one, Meirelles and his team filmed entirely on real locations, understanding that no set or CGI wizardry can stand in for Nairobi, London or Berlin. The film was shot predominantly in Nairobi, particularly, within Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums. A sensitive camera was employed, and as a result, the town and people of Kibera were not exploited and portrayed as a wasteland so often seen in the few films about Africa, but as hopeful humanity.

The film responsibly captures a more expansive and complex picture of Africa than the one generally reported by the media. Consequently, the audience is educated to see that Africa's problems are not solely internal, but quite often the "nasty things" are planted there by old and new colonialists.

In the case of this story, these colonialists are the British High Commission and the pharmaceutical companies that pledge no national allegiance: "It's a marriage of convenience, and the only thing it's going to produce is dead offspring," describes Tessa, one of the main characters of the film and Meirelles and Le Carré's resilient seed, about the ghastly union of the two. >>