Berlin Film Festival by Asiah - Chicken A La Carte

I am writing this article because of one e-mail I received from Asiah. In it, she shared with me one short film which I feel will do us a lot of good, to see how fortunate we are, while at the same time, for us to reflect on our roles as human beings, living in the same space and planet called Earth.

The story begins with two teenage girls arriving at Jollybee, one of the most locally successful fast-food franchise in the Philippines.


The food portions were very generously huge and it is inevitable that they are left half-consumed with the other half going into the wastebin.

Next we see a poor man riding his bicycle along the blare and glare of the city. He walks into the Jollybee restaurant and straight into the kitchen. The kitchen employees passed him the pail of discarded left-overs, all mixed up with chicken bones, noodles, rice and what have you.


The poor man rummage through the mixture of contents and slowly picks out the remains that are half eaten. He places these gently and lovingly into a plastic bag and when he is done, he cycles off into the night, back to where he came from.

Morning time, he rides into his village where little children waited anxiously for his return. The big pail is placed on the ground and the kids happily sink half their bodies into the pail to reach the food contents inside. This is a heart-wrenching picture of joy amid the sadness of poverty.


Nonetheless, the children eat away to quell their hunger.

I shall let you watch the rest of the film and how the poor man feeds his family.

See here.

We are told that 25,000 people die of hunger the world over - - - EVERYDAY!

Take a peek too at some of the other films especially the one titled: 'Bapoto'