This tale of a poverty-stricken girl who finds the promise of a new life in chess is both tragic and triumphant This is the story of Phiona Mutesi, an unschooled young girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, taught to play chess by a missionary teacher Robert Katende (played by the loveable David Oyelowo), who discovers that she is a prodigy.From the moment the chess pieces spill out like sangoma bones, they promise a new life.Phiona takes on the best of the slum, then the private-school boys, then goes to Russia to compete against the world's best.Today the real Mutesi is moving towards grand-master status while studying in Katwe.story_article_left1Lupita Nyong'o plays the girl's fierce but dignified mother, a widow occupied with putting food in her children's bellies and keeping a roof over their heads.Director Mira Nair, in her signature style, takes the film out of the sports genre and makes it starkly real in the vein of her awarded films.Based on a true story first told in an article (and now a book) by journalist Tim Crothers, the film shows an uncomfortable African reality. Slum life, where children must sell maize to survive rather than go to school, a world where they illicitly play chess for a bowl of porridge.It is a story of winning chess games in a foreign country and beating privileged children, but also not having walls around your home, or enough to eat when you get there.Nair captures the joyful chess spirit which snakes through the narrative as Mutesi's strong pawn plunders to checkmate. The children may be hungry, but they still dance.Oyelowo is warm and emotional as Mutesi's dedicated teacher. Nyong'o is frighteningly strong. The children are memorable - untrained, funny and smart.It is a tragic but triumphant tale that jolts you because it is so real.WATCH the trailer for 'Queen of Katwe':Rating: 4/5..