The Vintagent Selects: A collection of our favorite films by artists around the world.

PINK PANTHER (2019)

Run Time: 16:54
A Film By: Jaremey McMullin
Camera: Matthew Hyndman
Editor: Tanya Schangin
Key Cast: The Riders of the Pink Panthers

FILM MAKERS

There are 175,000 motorcycle taxi drivers in Liberia … and only 10 of them are women. They call themselves the Pink Panthers All-Girls Motorcycle Club of Liberia. Pink Panther tells KD’s story of life as a woman motorcyclist in a country and sector still dominated by men. The film looks at the successes and failures of international aid efforts to help women break into the motorcycle business. It explores the multiple and contradictory ways that gender identity and gender norms play out in post-war Liberia. KD’s love of riding and pride at being one of the first women to make it as a cyclist shine through but might not be enough to keep her in the motorbike hustle.

LIBERIA: LEGACIES OF PEACE short film series: Pink Panther is one of five films that comprise a documentary short series, ‘Liberia: Legacies of Peace.’ The series, funded by the Scottish Funding Council’s ODA Global Challenges Research Fund, looks at the everyday challenges and opportunities of peacebuilding in post-war Liberia.

SUMMARY

“Because I’m just interested in what men can do I can do the same also. That’s my policy. That’s my motto.”

This was Kadiatu Bah’s first answer to my question about why she had decided to become a motorcycle taxi driver. Motorcycle taxis appeared in Liberia shortly after the war ended. The business started when former combatants from the war used their disarmament payments to invest in motorcycles to ferry passengers along roads that are frequently impassable by car, especially during the rainy season. Given its origins, motorcycling is at the forefront of war-to-peace transition. It’s where young people are engaged in the tough work of re-building lives and livelihoods. It’s one of the few sectors in Liberia where young people can survive and thrive, but it’s a tough, competitive sector almost entirely dominated by men. Liberia’s Pink Panthers are trying to change that. In this film, I wanted to capture the hope and promise of that change but also show how hard change can be to achieve, even in a country that considers itself at the forefront of ‘gender mainstreaming’ efforts. The film documents the successes and failures, big and small, of development aid efforts to help the Pink Panthers. I come from the academic world and it’s full of stories of aid assistance failures. It’s rare to find work on post-war transition that tells stories of joy, and this film is first and foremost about the pride and happiness that KD gets from being a motorcycle taxi driver. She said the assistance that the women received, notwithstanding various failures, was instrumental to supporting women riders at a critical time. She participated in the film because she hopes that it will convince people to provide more assistance to women riders so that women can move from the street into activities of self-support.

RELATED MEDIA

Read Jaremey McMullin’s research paper – Hustling, cycling, peacebuilding: Narrating postwar reintegration through livelihood in Liberia

Watch Jaremey McMullin’s companion short film – Best Man Corner