Tell us about “Puebla mi Amor,” the soap opera embedded within the film. Why is that in there?

Initially, I was thinking of just licensing a telenovela for this film, and then I realized that if I shot my own, I would have more control as to what the characters did and said, and how directly they could impact my characters in the actual film. I wanted to show these parallels between what we watch and how they sometimes influence our lives. “Puebla mi Amor” is a completely fictitious telenovela I created just out of knowing how much telenovela culture really has played an impact on Ghanaian ideology — ideas of love, ideas of family. I think we’re really fascinated by foreign culture as Ghanaians. We’re constantly absorbing it and inevitably it influences us.

I initially was planning to shoot the telenovela in Miami, which is where most telenovelas are shot, but I just couldn’t afford it on our micro budget. And so I ended up casting everybody in Ghana, and pretty much faking Miami, faking Mexico, in Accra with some expats living here. It was really exciting to create that world right here, and show that it’s all fluid — that we live in a polycultural society and nothing is an island and everything’s borrowed from the next. I can’t wait for people to fall in love with those characters as well.

Blitz the Ambassador on the set of The Burial of Kojo in Western Region of Ghana with local crew members. Photo: Ofoe Amegavie.

What does it mean for you to have produced and filmed a feature film in you home country?

It’s huge. I daresay that this is the first non-foreign film of this magnitude and scale to be produced in Ghana. I’m pretty certain of that. We’re burning cars, digging mine shafts and doing crazy stuff that’s mostly done when big-budget Hollywood films are shot here. Recently Beasts of No Nation was shot here for Netflix, but those are operations that pretty much move in and move out. They literally bring everything and take everything out, from manpower to equipment to staff to crew.

Before this project even began, I launched the Africa Film Society here in Ghana, and we created a film screening called Classics in the Park, which has grown considerably. The idea was to reboot cinema. We’ve had cinema culture in Ghana for several years, but it’s been dormant for a while. And so for me, this film was an opportunity to not just create a film, but to create the environment, and help inspire the audience and rekindle that love for cinema. Because you can’t make a film that ends up playing all over the world but never at home, which is mostly what happens.

“Cinema isn’t just a form of entertainment. It’s something that I truly believe helps one see oneself in the world.”

The other thing that’s exciting about this film is infrastructure: being able to build a network of competent crew. This is something that will benefit not just my films, but other productions that will come to Ghana — and other productions will be started by Ghanaians here. You’ll have a cadre of well-trained and very inspired crew and cast.

For me, cinema isn’t just a form of entertainment. It’s something that I truly believe helps one see oneself in the world. It helps you see a reflection of yourself in the narratives, and feel a part of a global narrative. For a long time, African filmmakers and African narrators did not have that opportunity. The rest of the world has very little knowledge, understanding, or appreciation of African stories by African filmmakers. I hope this film can set a precedent that films can be made on a low budget, can be shot on location, authentically, by directors who are familiar with the local environment. They don’t have to be foreign productions that come to tell the story. When that happens, the story is often told wrong. It will enable us as Ghanaians, as Africans, to understand ourselves better — and hopefully the world will too.

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