Obama-backed documentary The Eyes of Ghana comes from producer with Surrey roots

Surrey-raised filmmaker Nana Adwoa Frimpong produced The Eyes of Ghana, a new documentary executive-produced by former U.S. president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, founders of Higher Ground.

The 90-minute feature documentary is directed by Oscar-winning Nova Scotian Ben Proudfoot and made by Breakwater Studios. It explores the life and work of 93-year-old Ghanaian filmmaker Chris Hesse. His archive chronicles Ghana’s journey to independence and the country’s early years as a sovereign nation.

Hesse served as personal cameraman to Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. As his eyesight fades, Hesse is racing against time to save more than 1,000 films capturing the fight for independence in 1950s and ’60s West Africa.

A biography on Breakwater Studios’ website describes Frimpong as a Ghanaian-Canadian director, writer and creative producer who works in narrative and documentary film, telling stories about women and people of colour. The site says her storytelling interest is shaped in part by community organizing work on accessibility rights for students.

The biography says her advocacy led to the first genderless bathrooms in the 58-year history of the University of Toronto Scarborough, the publication of MAYA, the campus’s first online print journal honouring women storytellers, and a keynote appearance at a women’s storytelling conference alongside Tarana Burke, founder and executive director of the Me Too Movement. It also says Frimpong hosted the annual 2017 TEDxUTSC conference as its first woman host.

The film’s producers have partnered with global streaming sensation IShowSpeed to bring the film and its history to younger audiences around the world. A trailer for The Eyes of Ghana has been posted on YouTube.