By: Murtala Mohamed Kamara
Movies have played an important part in many of our lives.
They have entertained us, but more importantly, they have shaped our upbringing, introduced us to different cultures and traditions, and opened our minds to a world beyond our immediate surroundings.
For me, movies have been part of my life from childhood.
I grew up in a family that loved films. My father, Alhaji Abdulai Kamara, was the person who introduced us to the magic of cinema and television.
He is on record as being one of the first people to take television into his home in Tongo Field in the 1980s. Those who grew up around Tongo Field will remember Abdulai Buima and his home, which became a popular spot for movie viewing.
My father would open his home to people from the community to come and watch films with our family. Whenever he built and fully furnished a new house, he made sure a television set and VHS cassette player were among the essentials.
Growing up in Calaba Town, weekends were special. After the morning Subha prayers, my father would often put on a movie.
One of his favourite Bollywood films was Ganga Jamuna, starring the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. He played that movie so many times that all of us children knew how to sing one of its popular songs.
My father was a huge Amitabh Bachchan fan.
During my childhood, however, my favourite actors were Mithun Chakraborty and Sunil Shetty, while my elder sister Hawa Kamara was a big fan of Shah Rukh Khan.
Looking back now, I realise that those movies were giving us much more than entertainment.
They were teaching us about people, cultures, traditions, cities and lifestyles we had never experienced.
Through Bollywood films, I learnt words such as pyaar, meaning love, and mohabbat, meaning love or deep affection.
Long before I ever dreamed of travelling around the world, I was already familiar with places such as New York.
I could watch a scene in a movie and sometimes tell you what city it was filmed in. I knew about Times Square in Manhattan long before I ever set foot in New York.
And this was not unique to me.
The United States has successfully exported its culture to the rest of the world through Hollywood, television and music.
Much of what people outside America know about American lifestyles, cities, fashion and popular culture has been shaped by what they see on screens.
India has done something similar through Bollywood.
Bollywood has arguably been one of India’s greatest cultural exports. Through its films, music, actors and stories, Indian culture has reached millions of people around the world.
For many of us growing up in Sierra Leone, India was not a distant country we knew little about. Bollywood brought India into our living rooms.
When the legendary Bollywood actor Dharmendra recently passed away, many of us felt as though we had lost a member of our own family.
We grew up watching his films. We called him “Dharam” for short, and he was my mother’s favourite actor.
That is the power of movies.
They create emotional connections with people we have never met and places we have never visited.
In our family, the love for movies went beyond watching them.
On weekends, my siblings and I would sometimes go with our elder sister Hawa Kamara to Abu Kombo Cinema on Wellington Industrial Estate. Every movie fan became almost like a member of our extended family.
At home, we would form a circle and turn our love for movies into competitions. We would ask one another how many films we had watched, which new films had been released, who starred in them and whether they were worth watching. We would even review the movies.
Today, I look back at those moments with great nostalgia.
Sometimes I wish I could bring back that period when watching a movie was an event.
Before streaming platforms, smartphones and social media, watching a film was something we shared with family, friends and sometimes an entire community.
Sadly, Sierra Leone’s cinema culture has changed dramatically.
Many of the big cinemas that once provided spaces for people to gather and enjoy films are gone.
But the love for movies has not disappeared. The movie lovers are still here. The memories are still here. And the stories are still here.
I have travelled extensively today, but in many ways, films prepared me for the world long before I travelled.
Movies made the world feel smaller. They gave me a glimpse of places, people and cultures I had never experienced. They made me curious. They made me want to travel.
Even today, despite a busy schedule, I still find time to watch movies on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Because for some of us, movies are not simply something we watch for entertainment.
Movies are part of who we are.
They are part of our childhood, our family memories and our journey through life.
That is why we are now trying to bring movie lovers together again.
We want to create a platform where movie enthusiasts can reconnect through indoor and outdoor movie watch parties, discuss films, share memories and stories, discover new movies and, most importantly, bring back that spark that made watching movies such a special experience.
Through SaloneJamboree Arts & Entertainment Newspaper, we will also dedicate a page to films and movie culture.
We will share personal movie stories, recommend films, highlight actors and filmmakers, and promote movie screening events.
This is more than a movie club.
It is an attempt to reconnect with a part of our childhood and preserve the memories of a generation that grew up believing that, for a few hours, a screen could take you anywhere in the world.
If you are a movie lover and would like to be part of this film club, reach out to me on WhatsApp: +232 78 510579
And if you have your own movie story — a film that changed your life, an actor you grew up admiring, a cinema you remember, or a special family movie tradition — share it with us.
Your story could be featured in SaloneJamboree Arts & Entertainment Newspaper, both in print and online.
Because every movie lover has a story.
And every story deserves a screen.