Opening on lush widescreen shots of South Africa's countryside, Beat the Drum is both literally and figuratively the story of a journey that takes place on two fronts: across the rural and urban divide and on the threshold of childhood and coming of age. When an unidentified illness strikes a village in the KwaZulu-Natal province, young Musa is left orphaned and forced to mobilize to the city of Johannesburg in search of his only known surviving relative, his uncle. In the gritty oil-tinged streets of Johannesburg, Musa falls in with a crowd of street urchins and takes on a number of odd-end jobs to save up enough money to bring home to his village, while also learning about HIV/AIDS. Winning over thirty awards at an array of international film festivals, including the Montreal World Film Festival, Beat the Drum is an important film and couldn't have arrived at a better time, when too much has been said and too little has been done for the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

David Hickson---South Africa/USA---2003---114 mins.