The Gambia like many developing countries have it’s good, bad and the ugly and the entertainment industry is no exception to all that. Truth be told the people in the entertainment/Arts sector are really doing their best with the little they have to try grow the sector to the level we want it to be.
Thursday 6th October, 2016 was not an exception, I was among hundreds of Gambians that turn out to watch a #StateOfMic production documentary entitled “Welcome to the Smiling Coast” LIVING IN THE GAMBIAN GHETTO at the Coco Ocean Resort and Spa. Honestly when I get the invitation to attend the premier and haven’t seen the teaser before made me though it was just another movie production that has the usual story line as my Naija brothers would do “Love, betrayal, Voodoo, Spirits of the death coming back to life”, but rather I was going to be amaze by a lot of things in one night.
Firstly like I said earlier we are no different from a lot many other countries/people we have it all the good, bad and the ugly but that’s what makes life so much fun and interesting, because to be sure of what life has to offer is to live a boring life. At a time that there is so much NEGATIVE VIBES coming from our politics, the entertainment industry having its own issues, our youths taking to the rough seas of the Mediterranean chasing on their DREAMS and some of them loosing their lives along the journey… watching the documentary “Welcome to the Smiling Coast” LIVING IN THE GAMBIAN GHETTO has given me so much to think about. The documentary is absolutely a great production and an awesome story line, what hit me most was it shows the true struggle that a lot of us young people go through trying to realize our individual DREAMS. All the characters were honest in narrating their stories and for the first time seeing Gambians not shying away from the camera telling their own stories, especially some of their stories are Taboo for any to engage in our society and yet they were never worried of people pointing fingers or being judgmental the next time they walk the street. It still bits me how you manage to get them talk on camera, and that has gone to show how passionate the team was in trying to narrate their stories.
Those with the notion of “Gambia/Gambian b du Dem” is time you change it to “Gambia/Gambian b rekkai Dem” the production of the documentary is of high quality and standard, and we have so many other good products by Gambians out there that could compete with other similar productions from other parts of the world. True we have our short coming but that can’t be fix by any one person/group or even the government but rather it should be a collective responsibility of every one to contribute towards the greater good, we can’t never see things the same way but we can debate to share ideas and come to agreement to that which is better.
A lot have gone wrong for generations our music, sports, creative industry, business/entrepreneurship, education, politics etc. but it’s never too late for us to correct the situation and make it what we want it to be and no one has a better role to play in making those changes than us the young people. I expect our government to create the enabling environment and platform for us to do our part in whatever way to move forward like many of our neighboring countries.
The documentary depicts the real daily life of us the young people, the hardships, struggles and dreams a lot of our young people go through which most of us have never seen on screen or heard of, the young people are full of passion in realizing their DREAMS, but the reality is that we lack support, platforms and trainings without which we will find it hard to actualize the dreams we have. Now that #StateOfMic has set the ground and other production houses and even the national broadcaster GRTS can get to work on other areas and broadcast it on GRTS.
At the end it was worth my time and energy and can’t wait to see much of such documentaries coming out of #TheSmilingCoast