HOW TO BUILD A LIBRARY

Credits

Name: HOW TO BUILD A LIBRARY

Country: Kenia

Year of publication: 2025

Format: DCP

Color: color

Language : OmeU

Duration: 103 Minuten

Series: 22. Afrika Film Festival Köln

Direction: King, Christopher; Lekow, Maia

Abstract

In the heart of Nairobi, the McMillan Memorial Library — a colonial-era library once reserved for white people — is falling into ruin. Shiro Koinange and Angela Wachuka are undertaking to renovate and decolonise this place in order to turn it into a space dedicated to art, culture, education and exchange. For eight years, filmmakers Maia Lekow and Christopher King followed their journey, between negotiations with the local community, politicians and patrons, and the challenges of reinventing a legacy. HOW TO BUILD A LIBRARY is an invitation to dialogue about the reappropriation of places steeped in history — a collective gesture of memory, creation and transformation.