Durban FilmMart Winner Touts Ghanaian Cinema
by ANDILE NDLOVU
Owusu speaks about strength of Africa’ s storytelling culture
The Durban FilmMart winners were announced Monday. Young Ghanaian femme helmer Akosua Adoma Owusu’ s project won ARTE France’ s ARTE International Award, which is worth 6,000 euros($ 7,918) for her project,“ Black Sunshine.” She hopes to begin shooting her feature in the first quarter of 2014 for a 2015 release. Variety caught up with her ahead of the announcement.
We ran a story at the beginning of the festival about the number of female directors involved here. How do you feel about the opportunities afforded to female directors like yourself?
What’ s the most exciting thing about being a young filmmaker in Africa?
There’ s so many stories that we can be telling. We’ re at a place where we have all these resources available to us. There’ s a lot of great African talent that is ready to tell our stories, instead of having them filtered through other people. It’ s time for us to take over the reins and promote our cultures.
What is the film industry in Ghana like, and where does it stand right now?
The film industry in Ghana is very similar to the Nollywood film model( Nigeria): We’ re both Anglophone African countries, and more specifically Ghanian films are very local. The films end up being shown to Africans and the diaspora in the U. K. and U. S., but in terms of traveling to international films festivals, it’ s very rare that a Gollywood( Ghanian) film reaches international markets. But there are a lot of new exciting things happening within the Ghanian film industry. For example, the films made in Kumasi in the village are very local— they are comedic— and then you have the films from the city, which are very English and they
That’ s interesting, because the history of African storytelling has always been deeply-rooted with females being the story-tellers in our culture, and I find it really interesting how now there’ s this new wave of African female filmmakers who are now telling stories. And not just specifically in Ghanian culture, but all over, including Kenya and South Africa in general.
How do you feel about making your first feature?
I have a background in making experimental film videos in the fine arts world. As of now, I can’ t say I have had too much of a problem or difficulty in making films. There are also a lot of great initiatives out there assisting African story-tellers.
40 | WGSA MAG July 2013