Maia Lekow and Christopher King on Sundance Doc ‘How to Build a Library’ and How the Story of Saving One Nairobi Library ‘Can Be the Blueprint’ For All of Africa — And the World

variety.com:

Anna Tingley Two documentaries premiering at Sundance this weekend are set thousands of miles apart — in Nairobi, Kenya and Texas, respectively – but at the heart of their stories is the same thesis: the importance of libraries to any healthy democracy.

And, in each of the film’s most compelling scenes, also a plea: to save them. Kim Snyder’s “The Librarians” follows a group of librarians, dubbed FReadom Fighters, who have resisted book bans in Texas, Florida, Iowa and beyond.

But the urgency of the Sarah Jessica Parker-produced doc is underscored by another film on the lineup: Maia Lekow and Christopher King’s “How to Build a Library,” which follows two Kenyan woman’s mission to restore a public library in the country’s capital, Nairobi.

Wachuka and Shiro are the stars of the 103-minute film, which trails the intrepid pair as they work to transform the city’s formerly whites-only library, founded by British colonizers in 1932, into a cultural hub that reflects the contemporary, youthful, creative metropolis that exists today. “I always thought this is the space where a great film could be made,” King tells Variety over Zoom from his home in Nairobi, the night before he and Lekow — his wife and directing partner – fly to Park City for the film’s premiere. “We were just waiting for some kind of vehicle to take us there and give us some kind of dramatic impetus.” When Wachuka, who they had both met years earlier in shared creative circles, asked them to document she and Shiro’s undertaking to salvage the McMillan Library, King and Lekow realized this was their next movie. “We knew we needed to film for ourselves after we saw the state of the library and all of these things that were being unearthed as they were going.