A PROJECTOR screen hangs in the middle of a room in William V.S. Tubman High School as a handful of expatriates and Liberians mill about, waiting for the film that was scheduled to start over an hour ago. Young women wait behind a table filled with snacks, but most of the yellow plastic chairs are empty. After volunteers plug and unplug a jumble of cords and tap a few computer keys, the projector at last begins to play the film, “No More Selections, We Want Elections”, which traces the 2005 polls that brought President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to power.
The sound is gritty and light streaming through the sheer curtains washes out the image on the screen. But a film festival is a new concept for the country. The brainchild of Pandora Hodge, a young student, and colleagues from the University of Liberia, the film festival was held over three days in Monrovia in February, airing Liberian and African films in classrooms and communities throughout the capital.
Ms Hodge says she hopes to challenge the war-torn image of Liberia and build up interest in an art-house cinema called Kriterion that she and her colleagues are trying to establish. “We are creating a platform where young people can go to express themselves,” she says. “Cinema is a really good way to get people involved and aware of what is happening in the country and abroad.”
Inspired by a cinema of the same name that was created in Amsterdam by students involved the resistance movement to the Nazis after the second world war, Ms Hodge hopes that Kriterion can provide part-time employment to students and become a hub for Liberian cinema and intellectual debate. The Kriterion model has been adopted by students in post-conflict cities such as Sarajevo.
Liberia has never had a vibrant film culture and the scene is small and amateurish, with only a handful of directors. Most people watch films in ramshackle video clubs, sitting on wooden benches as Nigerian, American and Indian films flicker on television screens. Two of Monrovia’s three cinemas, remembered fondly by Liberia’s pre-war generation, have been demolished or taken over by traders; the one still standing screens Bollywood movies.
Kona Khasu, who made "No More Selections, We Want Elections", reckons a Liberian film industry could help to replace the collective historical memory that was largely erased by the 1989-2003 civil war, during which many records and archives were destroyed, and let Liberians shape the story of a country whose recent history has been narrated by outsiders. Ms Hodge says she is confident that she can help. And with that, the electricity cuts and she rushes off to fill up a generator for the next screening.
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