Who knew that such drama could be found in the Dewey Decimal System? How to Build a Library, premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, finds a topical and character-driven tale in the story of friends Wanjiru “Shiro” Koinange and Angela Wachuka. The writers and literary activists have an ambitious project: to revitalize the McMillan Memorial Library in the heart of Nairobi, Kenya, along with two of the smaller library branches in the city. But they’re not just renovating the library: they’re rebuilding a network for sharing knowledge in a country long governed by colonial violence.
Shiro and Wachuka’s organization Book Bunk gives the library system a complete overhaul. Besides refurbishing the physical space of the libraries, they’re also reimagining them. Directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King (The Letter) offer a cinéma vérité portrait of the Book Bunk team leading the decolonization of an institution. The project has symbolic resonance, too, as the McMillan Library was restricted to white patrons only during its many years. Shiro and Wachuka therefore have to reimagine the space in a way that invites Kenyans to enter and fell welcome.
Their mission also means deconstructing the colonial systems that govern libraries, like Dewey Decimal Classification—a process that has them butting heads with the resident librarians when their colleague tries introducing a new catalogue system. The old guard doesn’t see the point in abandoning a system that works and has been in place for over a century, but haunts the library with its colonial past as subjects like languages leave just a sliver of space for African literature in the catalogue. This tension speaks volumes about the internalization of the colonial past that Shiro and Wachuka strive to confront. The revitalization means that African languages, history, and cultures aren’t an afterthought in the library: they’re at the forefront.
How to Build a Library follows Shiro and Wachuka over a tumultuous eight-year period. They fundraise, renovate, and create a community space. Along the way, though, they have to deal with divisions in the ranks, crooked politicians, a global pandemic, interpersonal conflicts, and a royal visit, all the while unburdening the institution—and themselves—from the weight of colonial history. It’s an inspiring conversation starter that reminds audiences of the joy of smelling an old book.
“You don’t think about it when you’re filming, but now in this time politically across the world, America included, I hope that this film also will be able to reach so many different people and so many different capacities to be able to have these conversations,” says Lekow. “I hope it helps people figure out ways of moving forward or trying to figure how to protect themselves within their own spaces.”
POV spoke with Maia Lekow and Christopher King via Zoom ahead of the Sundance premiere of How to Build a Library.
POV: Pat Mullen
ML: Maia Lekow
CK: Christopher King
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
POV: What first interested you in following Wachuka, Shiro, and the restoration of the McMillan Library?
ML: We’d known them for a long time, actually, in different realms. I was on the music side. Chris at that stage was doing some filming and he was working with Wachuka who was running the most contemporary African publishing house. Shiro was working for a music/sound company, so we met in these different spaces, but we’ve known them for a long time. They actually approached us when they wanted to revitalize McMillan Library that sits right in the heart of Nairobi. Initially, they wanted us to come and do some videoing for them, so we went down there to check out the space as they were taking some people around. We thought it was a good idea to potentially do this as a long-form documentary, independently, because there were just so many just interesting things as they were searching through all the material. We thought it would be a great vehicle to tell a wider story of the country.
CK: The first day of filming was the first scene of the film, just them in the library before getting the project off the ground. Then we filmed their first board meeting and realized the complexities of what they were trying to pull off. We knew them in their former roles and knew how they are plugged into this interesting side of Nairobi that we love—the literature scene, the poetry scene, the really critical intelligentsia—the city that doesn’t get represented very much, at least to the outside world. And then, of course, seeing how knowing hectic things get with the government, what they’re attempting, and knowing how determined they were to pull it off, we thought it made a lot more sense as a long-form film. So we said we couldn’t really help with the promotional stuff, but if it’s cool, let us just keep filming. Thankfully, they were cool with that.
POV: I really like that scene near the beginning of the film where Book Bunk and the librarians are all at the same table. Shiro and Wachuka are asking for feedback and they’re met with silence. If there’s no dialogue between your participants, how do you approach that as filmmakers?
ML: At the time I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is gold for the film.” It was really chalk and cheese from the beginning. We filmed that early on, so we knew that there was going to be some intergenerational tension happening with the old guard who wanted to keep things exactly the same way and then these new girls who are coming in with their new team. It’s so frustrating because I know the system so well in the sense. It’s challenging because you are up against paralysis and people not wanting to change—and maybe people not necessarily not wanting to change, but not even thinking about what that could possibly be.
CK: I really felt for all the librarians because they’ve stuck with this library, some of them for 30 years. They’re severely underpaid, unmotivated, and probably had some of the worst working conditions anyone could really ask for. We knew that there was going to be some tension with trying to change the status quo of the Kenyan state. That library’s original condition was [reflective] of the way that the Kenyan state is functioning. They became the personification of that paralysis. I think it probably got a little bit more adversarial than we showed in the film, but we didn’t want to delve so far down into a beef emerging. They’re still working out how to work together.
POV: The renovations deal with the much larger process of decolonizing institutions. That element is obviously inherent to Book Bunk’s project, but how do you make that cinematic and translate that to a wider audience?
CK: I think this is one of our biggest challenges. At the beginning, we knew we found it interesting and we both know the complexity of Kenya’s last 150 years. In all our films, we try to make a very personal story, but there’s a lot of the political in the personal. In this situation, we hoped that this story with the dramatic engine of their mission and the natural encounters with these historical artifacts that they were digging up and dealing with, and having to confront and intervene in—we didn’t know what we were going to come across. It was totally out of our control what they were going to find, especially on the days that we’re actually there filming.
We let that dictate what intersections of history we went into. Also, the people that came into the library, like the King of England, who we never would’ve thought was going to roll in in the middle of a conversation about decolonization. Once we had that, that took us back to earlier royal visits, the Tom Mboya assassination [Mboya was a former Minister of Labour who played a key role in Kenya’s fight for independence and was assassinated in 1969], and the first hanging. [Librarians find a photograph of Nairobi’s first public hanging in the archives.] These events popped out as we were there, and we let that dictate how the history and the decolonization conversation was going to unfold in the film.
ML: It was so complex, so fragile. As filmmakers, you’re really trying to decide how you essentially delve in—but not too much, not too little, so that people can understand the complexities, but then also, you ask, “Is this the right way to do it? Should we go into archive?” It’s a lot, but I feel we’ve been able to find some balance.
CK: The conundrum that colonialism or decolonization isn’t this clear cut thing—that colonialism finished and now it’s over. It’s an ever pervasive inseparable thing from all of our lives mostly anywhere in the world. Shiro and Wachuka both seemed to have a really great grasp of that. This isn’t just a matter of changing the name [of the library] and throwing out all these old books and putting in new ones. It is really about confronting and accepting and understanding what to do next. How to make the world you want out of the world you’ve inherited.
POV: Maia, as someone who grew up in Kenya, what was your relationship with the library? Was there a moment when you understood the tensions that the library holds and represents?
ML: I had actually never been in that library as a young person. I remember walking by it because also it always looked closed. My mom had a travel agency in downtown. She was a travel agent and, growing up, I used to go there a lot. I remember when I used to go and find lunch or whatever, I would go past the library, but I never actually went inside. Then, later on in life as an adult, I was confronted by this crazy building that’s never changed. Now as we’ve delved into this story, understanding its complexities, it came to me much, much later in life.
POV: We see the toll that the project has on Wachuka and Shiro, and that there’s a lot of stress in their personal relationship. How do you decide how much space to give them to work out that personal tension?
ML: It’s so hard. Shiro is really the heart of the film, so she is very open with her conversation, with her feelings. We were able to capture a lot from Shiro, but Wachuka is very guarded. When it came to this relationship, how to deal with it, Shiro would send us WhatsApp messages just explaining everything to us. But we never ever got anything from Wachuka.
CK: We got some.
ML: But unless there’s an interaction or something that happens live, it was difficult for us to put too much in. But at the same time, we find that no matter what, anyone in a marriage, in a working relationship—there’s always going to be ups and downs. We wondered if people should just assume it or should we show it?
CK: We also thought about removing it completely and did in certain points of the rough cut, but even when we removed it—
ML: Something was missing.
CK: People sensed it and then they’re like, “Are you guys removing that because you are too close?” A lot of people, young entrepreneurs who are teaming up with friends or getting these projects up and running, the hardest thing becomes keeping the relationships together and pushing through these moments and difficult human relationships. What remained in the film is enough to have a small glimpse, but without going down that road of a soap opera or a reality TV show.
ML: If we went down too much of that road, then people would want more of that side. It would take away from the library.
POV: How do you two navigate the stress of your relationship as personal and professional partners?
ML: There’s different strengths in both of us, and I think that then that’s what makes things work so well.
CK: But they’re all in tandem. We don’t divide off. When we’re shooting, it’s me on camera and Maia on sound. We’re both figuring out what we want to get.
ML: But if there’s something that I see, then I kind of [makes a nudging motion] thingy with Chris and vice versa.
CK: You’re a great director, my love.
ML: Thanks, Chris.
CK: And then in the edit, we’re in the room together. Maia’s working on pulling selects and I’m putting sequences together. We’re on Zoom with our editor Ricardo Acosta, who’s down the road from you in Toronto. Maia’s working on the score while I’m working on the grade and we figure out how to get it through there.
ML: And then we also has kids in between all of that. We’ve got two: a one-year-old and a three-year-old.
CK: This is why we moved out to the mountains to have a quiet life with our editing suite and our kids in their little forest school.
POV: That’s a lot! But in terms of so much going on, how is it filming a story where the participants always seem to be in limbo when it comes to funding? Book Bunk seems to be doing its restoration in cycles, but really, every time they’re waiting for funding or seeking extensions, that presumably impacts you because it means you’re working longer and playing a wait-and-see game as well.
ML: That happened in the sense that [McMillan] Library has not been finished. Obviously, for us as filmmakers, it would have been great at the end to have this new building. Of course, that’s the perfect ending you want. But they have continued and they’re really good at fundraising, they’re really good at finding money. It’s not easy, but they are able to do it.
For us, there was enough stuff to then continue from our end to film. Once we were the back and forth with a political game, we didn’t know that potentially we wouldn’t have the ending of them signing the final [contract] and being able to renovate. Then there was a bit of a lull and we thought we had an ending. But actually it was pretty bland. Then a few days later, then we got the call from Shiro, who said the King and Queen [Consort] of England wanted to come and visit. And we were like [leans in] “Oh, really?” And the new governor was going to come to their next gala. Potentially that could then be an ending. We didn’t know whether it would be the King and Queen first or the Governor first. But then we just filmed all of that and at least we had a solid ending.
CK: Living from cycle to cycle is just the reality of working in arts organizations, even as documentarians. I think there’s a certain amount of faith required. Originally, we thought it was going to be a one or two-year thing. They were going to build the library, we were going to have a documentary. It was going to be great. But when year three came and things were nowhere near getting off the ground, we’re like, “How else do we make this an interesting story?” And that’s when we got deeper into the librarians, into the politics. We knew that their active intervention, the discussions that they were having and the community that they were growing, that was the real work and the most important part of their work: The psychological rebuilding.
POV: You were observing them doing a lot of savvy fundraising and this film has such an impressive roster of executive producers and international funding. What was attracted a lot of people to get on board this project? You have so many different resources like Roger Ross Williams, Abigail Disney, the Hot Docs Fund—there’s a lot of international interest in the story.
ML: Roger Ross Williams was on the Board of Directors of DocuBox, which is a Kenyan homegrown documentary film fund that is our mothership. Our first film, they really helped us out. On the second film, they come through when you need them, so we met Roger Ross when he came to Nairobi and got on really well. We had two projects coming up. He wanted to know more, and that’s how we then figured out how we’d move forward with them.
When it came to Hot Docs, with our first film, we were part of Hot Docs-Blue Ice Docs Fund. Blue Ice actually just came in not that long ago with some discretionary funding for us to finish this film. Elizabeth Radshaw and Heidi [Tao Yang] and the crew there have been amazing throughout and we’ve known them since our first film. And actually it was also first time that we ever attended a documentary festival. It was the first time that we ever had workshops and masterclasses and even started to begin the process of what story looks like.
CK: Ricardo Acosta was our mentor for Hot Docs Blue Ice. That’s how he came on board to edit The Letter. And then we just sent him everything we worked on since.
POV: But now that you’ve getting to the finish line and starting a new journey with the film, what are some of the conversations you hope to have with audiences when you get to Sundance? What role does public space, the library hold no matter where you are?
ML: I feel like libraries across the world are places where everyone is familiar with. Everybody knows they all have the same smells, they all have the same silence. Obviously that as a center and opening point is comfortable. I feel like there’s a lot of political [unrest] with people feeling angry and uncomfortable. This can also really trigger a lot of those conversations. What’s going to be interesting will be the colonial perspective and having these conversations with people in countries like the States that have been very problematic when it comes to race over many, many, many, many years. It will also be really interesting both for an African-American audience and also for a white audience.
CK: It’s high time for these historical reckonings that are happening. When we saw these two powerful women setting off on this journey and how they’ve just managed to be flexible and there’s been some compromise, that shows how you break through and build the world you want with the world you’re given.
