Sierra Leone / 2015 / 42mins / Documentary / English, Mandeng and Kuranko

In Search of Finah Misa Kule: The Story of a People who Live by the Word chronicles the quest of poet Kewulay Kamara to reconstitute an ancient epic handed down in his family. Kamara takes us back to his native Village of Dankawali in northeast Sierra Leone where the epic was written out by his father in the 1960s only to be destroyed when the village was razed during the recent Civil War in Sierra Leone.

Kewulay Kamara

Kewulay Kamara, poet-storyteller, multimedia artist and lecturer from Sierra Leone living in York. He is the subject of articles in The New York Times and has appeared on A&E Television, PBS, and other outlets. Kewulay has performed at St. John the Divine, Symphony Space, City Center, Oxford University, and the Dodge Poetry Festival. He narrated the TBS documentary, Legends of the Bushmen. He directed In Search Finah Misa Kule: the story of a people who live by the word, a documentary of epic poetry, history and music. Mr. Kamara has served as a senior consultant, expert facilitator, for UNESCO. He was featured in TEDx, A Foresight Storytelling Experience and in Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting (AIB)’ s Sacred Sounds. His book of epic narrative poetry: Word In the Belly of the Word is due in 2016. Mr. Kamara is a founder and executive Director of Badenya, Inc., a not for profit arts presenting organization in New York, and Dankawalie Secondary School in Sierra Leone that utilizes the presentation of African arts as a community building and bridge building tool. Learn More