The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun

Sili, a young teenage street kid, decides to hit the streets and sell newspapers to make ends meet. The other newspaper boys don't like her moving on their territory and give her a hard time. This is an observing piece on street life poverty.

The Sun is a newspaper, and the girl is a crippled girl living on the streets of Senegal in poverty with her blind grandmother. The film is basically a parable of her fortitude and the adversity she faces, with inspiring gestures of solidarity and thought-provoking elements of strife--even her enemies are sympathetic in the sense that they, too, struggle with poverty. This would be a wonderful film to show to children for discussion.

Being a poor and handicapped girl in a large West-African city guarantees a life full of hardship. But Sili is determined to take her fate into her own hands. She stops begging and starts to sell the newspaper 'le Soleil'. Although healthy boys dominate this business, she is immediately successful.

The atmosphere of the movie is slightly naïve; Sili successful stands up to policemen and even frees a woman who was imprisoned innocently. Although a bit fairytale-like, the girl Sili is indeed a worthy tribute to the street children of Dakar.

It was a joy to watch this outstanding film on the life of street children in Senegal. There was some sadness, but the story of determination of the small newspaper-seller was so profound. Lissa Baldera is an outstanding young actress (sadly, it was her only film to date). The fact that there was so sentimentalization by the director of these children's lives made that film that much more profound. Highly recommended.

Great movie, hard for me to watch as a pampered American.

Sili seems to live the impossible - she makes her money then seems to pass out that money to not only her Grandmother, but everyone nearby. There is no way to tell if these people are family or simply neighbors.

I have some health problems. When Sili is knocked over by the boys, and one of her crutches falls in the water, the camera pans to Sili's electric smile. She is smiling at the thought of her friend jumping in the water to get her crutch, not thinking about the evil boys that just tried to harm her.

It is a smile that I want to cultivate for myself. The smile was insane in its origin, it came from inside the girl, not from her circumstance. I want to be that kind of insane. I want to smile on my worst days like I don't have a care in the world.