Take a taxi ride through the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone – from Queen Victoria Square in Hull.

An exciting new film by two local film-makers will bring the sights and sounds of life in Hull’s west African twin city to a cargo container in Hull city centre this week.

‘Taxi’, by Jon Robson and Murray Clark, has been commissioned by Hull Short Film Festival. The 20 minute film – presented in a split-screen format - has been produced from hours of footage shot through the windows of slow moving taxis.

Jon and Murray’s aim was to capture the vibrancy and life of the streets of Freetown, whilst at the same time showing the poverty and hardship of life in a city which is still recovering from the recent decade-long civil war.

Jon Robson explained how the film has developed: “A team of us visited Sierra Leone last May to develop a media-in-education project involving young people in Freetown and Hull – this film has grown out of that project. The two cities have been twinned for 25 years but we felt that few people in Hull had any real idea of what life is like in Freetown.

“People who visit the container in Victoria Square will experience Freetown almost exactly as we experienced it. It really is an amazing place, full of colour, action and incredible sights, as well as the sounds of people trading, hawking goods through the taxi window, shouting and chatting in the street – and all the time in the background the bouncing sounds of Sierra Leonean radio stations.”

Taxi is just one strand of the work that Jon’s organisation Cafesociety.org is developing in Freetown.

A year-long programme of work in Hull schools, supported by Creative Partnerships Hull, will develop young people’s media skills and strengthen relationships between the two cities.

A further documentary project is in development for broadcast on national TV and Cafesociety.org is also working with the British Council, the British Library and Hull Museums on projects relating to Freetown and the abolition of the slave trade.

See what the Yorkshire Post had to say about Taxi :-

This song was written and performed by the Positive Music Project group at iEARN :: Sierra Leone. It is a message for the people of Hull. Please click through to our Freetown movies at YouTube.com to leave comments.

We worked alongside Barmmy Boy at iEARN to help the girls compose and produce a music track for Wilberforce 2007. It took them just 2 days to write the music and lyrics.

We have been so impressed with the musical abilities of the kids out here.

We filmed and recorded the accapella song outside the gates of the national stadium.

This guy is rumoured to be the best dancer in Freetown.

We tend to agree with the rumours.

Freetown Taxi

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

The filming of TAXI has gone extremely well. Much of the content has been shot .
It hasn’t been easy. We’ve encountered a mixed reaction from the streets.

The majority of people have appeared to interact with the filming as we drive by, however some of the Ju Ju secret societies have physically tried to stop the filming by grabbing at the camera and mic.

We braved it and came away with some beautiful images.

On the steps at Studio D

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

Yesterday we shot two music videos for the Studio D artists.
They wanted to use Lumley Beach as the backdrop to the shoots.

We pretty soon attracted a rather large audience.

As we finished the first video, a guy came forward and explained that he was the ‘cleaner of the beach’… he told us he wanted paying.

I asked the guys from Studio D to explain we were not a commercial organisation.

He left and returned with 8 more angry ‘beach cleaners’ all holding their brushes and demanding we payed them.

It all got a little out of hand so we slipped away through the crowd and re-convened at the Family Kingdom Bar.

Welcome Possibilities

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

We were travelling from Aberdeen to Freetown through Murray Town a few evenings back when our taxi stopped abruptly. A man ran in front of the cab carrying what looked to be like a long piece of wood.

He was followed by approximately 300 screaming, shouting & jeering people. It was a frantic human stampede through the small streets of Murray Town.

We looked on in shock and surprise.

We asked the taxi driver what was happening, he told us it was a witch hunt. He said Murray Town is renowned for witches.

Studio D // Freetown

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

On Thursday evening we visited again with Studio D and all the guys associated with the label.

Murray wanted to explain how important it was that we try and get a compilation of tunes from Salonian artists to an international audience.

The guys are all up for it. Obviously with anything like this it will take time and careful planning. They’ve asked if we can assist them in building an online web presence and producing a series of music videos for their artists.

Seems like so much to do and very little time to achieve it all..

After school class :: Freetown

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

On Thursday we had a meeting with Cordelia at the British Council.
We screened the films that had been produced during workshops with young people on our last visit.

We think they really liked the content and especially within the context of Wilberforce 2007 and the Hull // Freetown link.

We have been invited back for another meeting today with Tom Walsh, Director of British Council. Fingers crossed they might want to support and fund our project…

Hairdressers :: Freetown

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

Firstly sorry if you have been checking in for daily updates on our activities over here in Freetown.

It’s been tough. We are just coming out of the rainy season here and the lighting / clouds and showers have been playing havoc with our plans to shoot TAXI content. But we’re patient types and the images we have got look great..

Once again we seem to have attracted a lot of attention.. There seems to be a steady flow of people visiting us. Its all good…

Murray & Sidibay :: Lumley Beach

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org.

We’re staying on Lumley Beach at Family Kingdom. It’s safe, has electricity, internet connection but a little pricey at $100 per night.

Wednesday morning Sidibay turned up at breakfast. He’d heard we were back in town. He spent the morning with us and helped us to translate some of the kids movies from Krio to English.

We went out for lunch along the beach to Chez Nous and decided it would be nice to walk back along the beach…