About the film

The non-profit organization GiveDirectly has launched an experiment to fight poverty. It will send unconditional basic income to selected villagers in Kenya and observe how their lives change during the first years of the project.

Adult residents in three villages in Kenya are to receive twenty-two dollars a month for twelve years. According to the non-profit organization GiveDirectly, that should be enough to lift them out of poverty. The idea of free money seems too good to be true, but the first instalment arrives and the community starts to change. Some can start going to school. Others fix up their house, or buy a cow. But hidden behind the numbers are the destinies of real people. Their stories have not been captured in tables and analyses by an organization focused on the outcome. An imaginary line was drawn – people on one side gained the chance for a better life, but those on the other side did not.