Uma Thurman has already played one of the best screen heroes of the decade, the yellow-tracksuit-wearing, vengeance-seeking Bride of Kill Bill. Now it's time for her to slip into hero mode for a story a bit more down to earth. Variety reports that Thurman will star in the indie drama Girl Soldier, playing a teacher at a Ugandan school who rescued her students after they were kidnapped by rebel leaders.

Thurman told Variety, "This is a film that had to get made," Thurman said. "It's beyond me that in this day and age the exploitation of child soldiers goes virtually unnoticed and unchecked by Western media." The story is based on a book by Kathy Cook, which documented the 1996 raid at the boarding school and the rebels' attempts to turn the girls into child soldiers and sex slaves.

The plight of African children, from AIDS orphans to child soldiers, is often ignored by Western media, as Thurman points out, but it's also a difficult story to handle no matter what. It takes starpower like hers to bring attention to issues like these, even if the resulting film isn't exactly commercially viable. Good on Thurman for following her convictions and telling a story that deserves attention. Hopefully the film, directed by Will Raee, will be good enough to draw real notice.