Pure Intentions (2011)

• 78%
• 2011
• Documentary
• James Wilkes

This film follows Peter Oliver, ex-pat South African and one of Canada's most successful restaurateurs, as he travels to South Africa on behalf of The Stephen Leacock Foundation, an organization he founded. In the process, he finds himself on a collision course with reality. While visiting the schools he's built and continues to support, Oliver discovers that a post-apartheid hangover in South Africa persists. Old attitudes, divisions and practices prevail in some corners, and need to be addressed if Oliver's support is to continue. At the same time, we see a confident and competent educational institution bristle at the suggestion that they need to adapt to a first world vision that fails to appreciate their reality. It falls to Peter to collaborate with educators, in a determined effort to find hope and redemption in an incredibly complicated environment.A controversial, emotional and strikingly beautiful film, PURE INTENTIONS is the story of a man who seeks to right the wrongs of his home country's past by helping it's future - it's children. In the process, Oliver's journey takes an unexpected and very personal twist.