About this Short Film
The Pillar of Hope, directed by Phillip Kambalame (Malawi, 2021), is a short film that explores themes of achievement, education, employment, illness and inclusion. Through its attention to individual experience, the film highlights questions around medical and physical disability, motivation and life with polio. Its tone is intimate and determined, inviting audiences to reflect on barriers and possibilities faced by adults with disability. Presented in our Focus on Ability programme, The Pillar of Hope sits alongside other works that celebrate capability and resilience, while prompting discussions about access, support and opportunity. A quietly powerful contribution that honours real challenges without simplifying them.
Film Details
Film Transcript
Sorry about Mr Manzo. This is a story that requires less embellishment: the story not much of success but love, a story about personal achievements. We should expect less of milk but motivation, inspiration, love and at the same time a feeling to help someone who is incapacitated, for the hope that such person will glow into a big future one day.
Mr Mason is a disabled person; however, despite this he is a person who has achieved the Lord more than someone who is airborne. He is a primary school teacher at Himsunga Primary School in Lyronga. Regardless of his physical challenges, he has achieved to maori three university graduates, not including the other Breitlings working the College of Loyola and Robert Lowe's, plus several other notable Sunday schools in Malawi. Here is the less privileged, the unspoken and sung songs of this ungrateful world.
Mr Mason, like many other of his friends — which I can say less airport — made it into the circles of the land and categories, beating all the odds you could imagine. Of the little odds he challenged and about, including nursing and empty stomach, morning after sunset walking a very long distance — from a distance of 10 kilometres on wooden clutches — to your school where he teaches. That is none other than Songa Primary School. Imagine 10 kilometres, dead on wooden clutches, ensuring that a Malawian child is not denied the essential light to education. That is not a simple and mere achievement by someone who is physically challenged like Mr Mazon.
This is a story of a poor, lonely and disabled soul who never gives up on trying. No matter what, no matter how big the challenge, no matter how strong the turbulence, he pushes forward until he gets what he wants. The amazing, hard-working primary school teacher tried many a times looking for educational support during his underscore from the loyal Palace of Islam, but all his efforts never bore positive dividends. If it were not for this Canadian nun, Mr Manson would not finish with his cellular education attitude Sunday school. Then he's a father, and at the same time a prime role model to learn as a surrounding Songa Primary School in Iran. This is a school well known for its heartbreaking high enrolment and a stunningly beautiful record of high pass late at national exams.
This, if this even extends a lesson to all disabled people in his area and beyond, is to look up to him: that with passion, determination, persistence, consistency, perseverance, no challenges are bigger than one's desired destiny. Mr Mazon is a living example of dreams turned true. He managed to rise from the ashes, the rejection and the stigma of being looked at as a male disabled person to a teacher who has created so many positive citizens that this country can be proud of today. Disability is not an ability; give every child the best chance he or she deserves so that they realise their potential capabilities, just like Mr Mulson.
Filmmaker
Phillip Kambalame is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Phillip Kambalame.
