Early marriage and teenage pregnancy have been major societal vices affecting girls’ education in the country. Civil society organizations across Sierra Leone have been calling for the issue of early marriage to be addressed yet, it is palpable in many parts of the country. The director of the documentary, Sulaiman Stephens explained the essence of the movie in tackling early marriage in the country.
Sulaiman Stephens added “it’s being a while we have not done future film, and the way future film have been done tends to imitate Nigerian culture and people are not telling the typical Sierra Leone story. So we came to Bo to film on early marriage in as much as we are doing film to entertain but we also want to tell stories that are connected to the country’s social life.”
He furthered that the film would seek to address the issues surrounding early marriage in the country. He reiterated that they intended to change the landscape of the Sierra Leone movie industry, which he said started well but confronted with negative challenges along the way, and the market has drowned considerably, he noted.
“We the film makers are not giving the audience what they want right now so we want to make good film at the moment in order to change the perception of the Sierra Leone audience and the world at large.” He mentioned.
A character in the documentary, Martha Sesay said the movie would teach people on how they should allow their girl child to attain certain height, adding that parent should not remove their girl child from school for the purpose of marriage.
She mentioned that the movie has a morale lessons for house wives and that they should be submissive to their husband.
The forthcoming documentary could be a positive step in tackling the problem of early marriage, which many consider to be a barrier for the pursuit of quality education for the girl child in society.
