One World Week was established in 1978 and is a development education programme bringing local people together to act on and raise awareness of global issues. The United Nations Day (24^th October) falls in One World Week annually.

Thousands of activists in the UK and around the world use the week as a focus for activities, education and celebration of One World issues, using a common annual theme.

On one of this year's publicity materials for the campaign states:

"How does unfair trade make you feel? What about debt? Or poverty? Pollution? The arms trade and conflict? Harmful effects of globalisation? Fascism and racism?"

Even before the tragic events of this month, this country experienced race riots in several towns and cities this summer, had adults shouting and whistling at children being taken to their school in Northern Island and the question of asylum seekers and immigration continues to be a hot political issue.

Clearly the issue of race is a perennial problem, and when your committee met in the spring to draw up the programme, we decided that the film industry had several films that addressed the issue of racism. We therefore investigated the availability of several titles including Intruder in the Dust (1940's), To Kill a Mockingbird and In the Heat of the Night; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1960's)

We then looked further a field and noted that several members had requested tonight's film since its international success and that the subject of racism is an issue within the film. It also addresses the question of suppression of individuals and societies, so we considered it a suitable film to mark One World Week - we hope you agree.

As is often the case these days, critics are required to give a short snappy line or two to describe a film - with Kolya, one critic said

"The perfect grouch has met his match. A five year old boy named Kolya."

The film has no stars, no violence and a sardonic view of sex. Why did it win an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and a stack of other awards and a large audience worldwide? According to the director when he discussed his film in 1997:

"I think audiences like it because they find something they miss in movies today. When things are as bad as they are, there is a space for a film that is positive. Kolya tries to speak about emotions and relationships in a way that is not superficial and fake. It doesn't blackmail the viewers. The mixture of sentiment and humour is peculiarly Czech, though. We Czechs always need black humour as an antidote to centuries of oppression."

His father, who plays the aged cellist, wrote the film. His first idea for the film was a story about a musician sacked for political reasons and forced to play in the crematorium. However the addition of the child to the story changed everything. A Russian casting director in a Moscow kindergarten discovered his co-star. Sturdy and solemn, the boy was fine at the audition but as soon as shooting started the director thought he had made a bad mistake.

"He kept looking into the camera and laughing. I was depressed. Then on the fourth day we saw in the rushes an angel who lived his own life in front of the camera. After that it was no longer necessary to trick him into doing things. He understood exactly that we did not want him to pretend to be sad - we wanted him to be sad."

Indeed the playing of Andrei Chalimon was critically acclaimed "the cutest child to see the inside of a cinema screen since Cinema Paradiso" his "performance is also nuanced and rigorous enough to transcend the potentially maudlin later scenes."

As with the old Czech cinema (Jiri Menzel's Closely Observed Trains and The Fireman's Ball together with Milos Foreman's A Blonde in Love) the film contains many elliptical comments about the culture and politics in the country around the time of the film, 1988.

The cellist's mother complains bitterly about a country that has Russian soldiers around every corner and the last throes of the Communist bureaucracy are well drawn.

However the director does not paint the Russians as villains. They are more puzzled spectators of what is going on in a country just beginning to wake up to its true self. This is a film that believes in humanity rather than systems.

Kolya's peculiar charm lies in its luminous photography, the honest performances from the older actors and a lovely one from the little boy.

The critics said at the time:

"Irresistible! Enchanting, very funny and genuinely moving." Barry Norman, Film 97

"The best thing you'll see all year" NME

"Astonishing performances, funny, warm-hearted and unsentimental" Independent on Sunday

I hope the film is an enjoyable diversion from recent traumatic events, and that it reaffirms the belief of many that different nationalities can overcome many problems provided people interact, rather than distancing themselves and isolating one another from people or religions of which they have little knowledge.

IAIN McGLASHAN