Tony Bennett and more at the Mondavi

Dateline staff

Danish actress Connie Nielsen is coming to UC Davis next week to talk about the plight of millions of people around the world who live in slums like Kibera, a place she encountered outside Nairobi, Kenya, while making the film Lost in Africa.

The film will be screened during Nielsen's appearance, Saturday night, May 21, in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. See the program details below. Watch the Lost in Africa trailer.

UPDATE: Getting a ticket may be difficult but not necessarily impossible. They were given away free last week, and all had been spoken for as of 5 p.m. May 13. However, some may be returned and other ticket holders may not show up — so, if you are interested, contact the box office for further information. The Vanderhoef Studio Theatre holds only about 200 for a film screening.

“The film humanizes the lives of people in the slums and makes them real to us, not blankly apathetic the way victims are often portrayed in the press and in films. Of that I am really proud," said Nielsen, who starred opposite Russell Crowe in the Academy Award-winning Gladiator (2000).

Her UC Davis audience will be the first in the United States to see the film. Before that, Nielsen, who lives in Marin County, will sit down for an interview with Dean Steven C. Currall of the Graduate School of Management. A panel discussion and question-and-answer session will follow.

“UC Davis has a long-standing commitment to social and economic progress in developing communities around the world,” Currall said. “The film will promote an important dialogue among those who examine economic development, cultural studies and sociology, and matters concerning infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity.

“We must identify and promote healthy developing communities through improvement plans that are environmentally and economically sustainable.”

Lost in Africa debuted in Europe in 2010 with the title Kidnappet (Danish for “kidnapped”). The film centers on an 11-year-old boy, the soccer-loving Simon, who travels to his native Kenya with his Danish mother (played by Nielsen), who adopted him. While in Kenya, Simon loses his soccer ball — and, when he goes looking for it, gets lost in a slum and becomes the target of kidnappers.

Since making the film, Nielsen has become involved in the Human Needs Project, serving as coordinator for what is described as a “water-based, clean technology project." It aims to establish community resource centers in slums around the world, providing clean water and public baths and sanitation, as well as energy — all via clean and sustainable technology.

The centers also would include information kiosks, adult education, Internet access and microloan offices — offering the tools by which slum dwellers can improve their own lives.

The program

Dean Currall’s interview with Nielsen is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. The film, in Danish with English subtitles, will begin at 7. Afterward, Nielsen and others are due to participate in a discussion panel and a question-and-answer session, with Jim Wunderman as the moderator. Wunderman is president and chief executive officer of the Bay Area Council (a business-sponsored, public policy advocacy organization for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area), and he is active with the Human Needs Project.