海角大神

In a courtyard just off bustling Kissy Street, the spine of Freetown鈥檚 commercial district,聽Zainab Bangura鈥檚 shouts echo between the concrete houses, above the din of car horns and shrieking schoolchildren.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want you to work for an Ebola burial team,鈥� she shouts at her son, her voice wobbling with worry. 鈥淚t鈥檚 too dangerous.鈥�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 care,鈥� he snaps back. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the best paying job I can get. I鈥檓 taking it.鈥�

Just then, another man steps towards the pair, waving his arms. Cut!鈥� he yells, and the spell is broken.聽Ibrahim Kamara, the son, breaks into a smile.聽Ms. Bangura reaches for her cell phone and walks off to make a call.

Welcome to the set of 鈥淓bola Gboss Gboss 2鈥� (Ebola Confusion 2), a dark comedy by one of Sierra Leone鈥檚 top entertainers, Kamara, who is better known here by his stage name: 鈥淪ara de Great.鈥澛�

In many ways, Sierra Leone has little to laugh about.聽Its green hills are still dotted with charred, bullet-ridden buildings abandoned in the decade-long civil war that ended in 2002, having killed 50,000 people and displaced a million more. And over the last year and a half, the country has fought another desperate war against the deadly Ebola virus. Since March 2014, more than 13,000 people have been infected and nearly 4,000 have died.

But between the lines of that narrative is another story of the lives Sierra Leoneans have forged in the virus鈥� margins, irreverent and seemingly impervious to its capricious ways. In聽Kailahun, the rural eastern district where Ebola first appeared, women's聽cooperatives have begun rolling out taffy-like pieces of handmade soap to sell to the newly hygiene-conscious. At Ebola checkpoints on major roads, hawkers rush to greet drivers with their offerings of聽plantain chips, boiled eggs and homemade donuts.聽

It is this Sierra Leone, one that keeps trudging along despite the setbacks, that Sara the Great tries to capture in the comedy of his movies. 聽

His films about Ebola are intended to do more than amuse. Stitched into the plots of the seven comedies he has produced since the epidemic began are social commentary and practical advice on disease prevention, from avoiding physical contact with the sick to calling for an Ebola burial team when someone has died.

鈥淥ur country is a stressful country. Not even our daily bread is guaranteed,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople always need something to make them laugh and I have that medicine. I鈥檓 the stress doctor.鈥�

The King of Sollywood

Today, Ebola has all but disappeared here. There have been just seven new cases reported in Sierra Leone in the past three weeks, , down from more than 100 per day at the height of the outbreak last year. Across the region, many attribute the decline in great measure to vastly increased understanding of how to avoid transmission, bolstered by public health campaigns, and occasionally, comedy films.

In a country where only 35 percent of adults are literate, films carry an outsized power, says Gibrilla Turay, president of the Compact Disk Sellers Association of Sierra Leone. And in the world of 鈥淪ollywood鈥� 鈥� as Sierra Leone鈥檚 low-budget film industry is known 鈥� Sara de Great is king. Mr. Turay estimates his salespeople sell between 30,000 and 40,000 DVDs of every Sara movie, with many more copies likely pirated in a country with virtually no cinemas.聽

鈥淓ven in many of the remotest villages, people were watching these movies,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t eases the stresses of life to watch comedies, but also, when this disease came we needed movies that would educate, and that鈥檚 what he did.鈥�

Sara got his start as a comedian during the civil war when he headlined a popular sketch comedy show 鈥� 鈥淲anpot,鈥� or 鈥淥ne Pot鈥濃�� on what was then Sierra Leone鈥檚 only TV channel. About five years ago, he says, he made the transition to feature films, and is now among the country鈥檚 most popular movie stars.

His face grins back from tattered movie posters plastered on walls and buildings across Freetown that advertise previous films like 鈥淓bola Don鈥檛 Come鈥� and 鈥淓bola Money.鈥� Walking along a downtown street on a recent afternoon, he is tailed by car honks and giggling children. A man leans out of a taxi, yelling, 鈥渨e love you, Sara!鈥澛燦o release date has been set for聽鈥淓bola Gboss Gboss 2." 聽

Sales are up

Sara鈥檚 is a stout, full-body style of comedy. He flings himself into scenes in a blur of flailing arms and exaggerated facial expressions. But he is the first to admit that as Ebola crept across the country, even he found it difficult to keep up the humor.

鈥淎rtists suffered a lot in this epidemic,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e make our living by gathering people together and we couldn鈥檛 do that.鈥�

Ugo Umara, a Nigerian immigrant who runs a stall selling DVDs here, says that at the outbreak鈥檚 height, the streets here were ghostly amid curfews, movement restrictions, and paranoia. Even sales of movies by Sara de Great slowed to a trickle. Today he's doing a brisk trade,聽selling about 100 copies a day of Sara鈥檚 most recent movie, 鈥淭raffic Police.鈥澛�

鈥淓bola spoiled a lot for us. People weren鈥檛 living fine,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut now, small, small, we are coming back to normal.鈥�