How to Build a Library

Dokumentarfilm, Historie
(TMDB)

In 2017, two intrepid young women, Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka decide to transform a dusty old relic of British colonial oppression: The McMillan Memorial Library in Nairobi, Kenia. For the first 26 years of its existence, Black people were not even allowed to enter it. Can a place like this be turned into a vibrant space for Nairobi’s modern-day community? Over eight years, directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King chronicle the struggles the two activists face on this extraordinary journey of remodeling, reclaiming, and decolonizing. “How to Build a Library” is a powerful reflection on libraries as archives of painful pasts and their potential as sites for community representation and social change.