How to Build a Library

This multilayered film documents the attempt by Angela Wachuka and Shiro Koinange to restore and renovate a colonial-era library in Nairobi, Kenya. While the two women are a force of nature and have a genuinely empowering and uplifting vision of what the finished library will be, they also exhibit a degree of well-intentioned naivety as they are forced to confront the internecine machinations of Kenya’s political class, as well as their own inability to authentically engage with the long-time employees of the library, who feel unheard and disregarded. In exploring the links between colonialism, literacy, and education, How to Build a Library is a heartfelt tribute to the inclusiveness and agency that libraries can provide to communities. Rendered with empathy and a lightness of touch that counters the traditional solemnity of its colonial spaces, How to Build a Library is a timely and engaging look at the power of individual action and the constraints to progress so often imposed by supposedly democratic structures.