![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\tDirector Ben Proudfoot has won two Academy Awards for short documentaries. But he expands to feature length storytelling for his new film The Eyes of Ghana, which just made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe documentary centers on a remarkable 93-year-old Ghanaian filmmaker and photographer, Chris Hesse, who captured vital footage of the nascent African independence movement as the personal cinematographer to Kwame Nkrumah, the first leader of a free Ghana.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cChris shot hundreds of films of Kwame Nkrumah. And in the \u201966 coup when Nkrumah was thrown out of office, the films were thought to have been burned,\u201d Proudfoot explained as he and his film team made an appearance at Deadline\u2019s Toronto Studio. \u201cBut when I met Chris a few years ago, he confided in me that indeed he had kept the negatives in a vault in London all these years. And that sparked the beginning of the story to begin this film and this movement to attempt to digitize and repatriate the origin story of the liberation of Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHesse himself is a walking repository of history, having witnessed Ghana rid itself of colonial rule, the first in a wave of countries on the continent that would do likewise, including Congo, Algeria, and Guinea-Bissau.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tChris Hesse in \u2018The Eyes of Ghana\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBreakwater Studios\/Higher Ground<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe knows so much, he\u2019s so knowledgeable and he\u2019s such a charming person,\u201d commented Anita Afonu, a producer of The Eyes of Ghana who first met Hesse while working on a short documentary of her own, Perish Diamonds. \u201cMy relationship with him graduated to something like a grandfather-granddaughter relationship. It\u2019s been a real privilege knowing him, spending so much time with him, sharing in this history. And I am even more grateful that this film has been made while he\u2019s still with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tPresident Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana addresses the UN General Assembly on September 23, 1960.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUnderwood Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tOnly a fraction of Hesse\u2019s full archive has been digitized. Footage brought to light in The Eyes of Ghana shows President Nkrumah at public events, addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, and meeting world leaders like President Kennedy. But Hesse also documented some more lighthearted interludes.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s this great moment where [Nkrumah] is flying a paper plane, which we love so much because you hardly get to see images of Nkrumah as this sort of fun, jovial person,\u201d said producer Nana Adwoa Frimpong, \u201cnot only seeing Nkrumah as making these really grand, important statements for liberated Africa, but seeing him as a human being and no longer sort of this mythical person over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tL-R Producer Nana Adwoa Fimpong, producer Anita Afonu, producer-DOP Brandon Somerhalder, director Ben Proudfoot of \u2018The Eyes of Ghana\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJosh Telles for Deadline<\/p>\n
\n\tBrandon Somerhalder, who has collaborated with Proudfoot as cinematographer on several films including the Oscar-winning The Queen of Basketball, serves as DOP and producer on The Eyes of Ghana. One of the most emotional scenes Somerhalder photographed was the exhibition of Hesse\u2019s newly digitized films at the Rex Cinema in Accra, Ghana, a venue originally opened in 1937.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAt the end of the day there was just an outpouring of love for people showing up to the screening,\u201d Somerhalder recalled. \u201cThis father and his two sons\u2026 came to the screening. He had heard about it, and he said, \u2018I came to this theater when I was my son\u2019s age and I saw movies here, and now I\u2019m bringing my two sons. And we\u2019re sitting in the front row of the Rex Cinema watching Nkrumah on the screen,\u2019 and they were crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tProudfoot joined forces with Higher Ground, the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, for his 2024 short documentary The Turnaround, streaming on Netflix. Higher Ground is back on The Eyes of Ghana, with the former president and first lady serving as executive producers. They recorded a video that played at the world premiere of the documentary at TIFF.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI am profoundly grateful to have a partner like Higher Ground who from the beginning has said, \u2018This is not about money,\u2019\u201d Proudfoot noted. \u201cWe have to obviously pay back our investors who helped us make the movie. But beyond that, how could we put $1 in the piggy bank knowing that this archive [of Chris Hesse] needs to be digitized? How can we put $1 in the piggy bank knowing that the Rex ought to be restored? And GAFTA, who\u2019s the Ghanaian Academy \u2014 kind of like BAFTA but in Ghana \u2014 so wants that to be a communal cinema space. So, we\u2019ve committed that any profits that come from the distribution of the film will go to those causes. And for us, that\u2019s the best and highest use of any documentary is one where you can sweep people into an important story and then begin a movement to make real change in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat are the distribution plans for the documentary? Watch the video above for that answer and much more on The Eyes of Ghana. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe Deadline Studio at TIFF is hosted at\u00a0Bisha Hotel<\/a>\u00a0and sponsored by\u00a0Cast & Crew<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director Ben Proudfoot has won two Academy Awards for short documentaries. But he expands to feature length storytelling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[37014,37015,37016,18,117,37017,19,17,327,37018,37019,11523,15935,13245,35604],"class_list":{"0":"post-50187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-anita-afonu","9":"tag-ben-proudfoot","10":"tag-brandon-somerhalder","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-higher-ground-productions","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-movies","17":"tag-nana-adwoa-frimpong","18":"tag-the-eyes-of-ghana","19":"tag-tiff","20":"tag-toronto","21":"tag-toronto-film-festival","22":"tag-toronto-studio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}