Relying on who you ask, Kwame Nkrumah is both a hero tragically robbed of the chance to see his visions materialize or a narcissistic would-be dictator.
The primary prime minister and president of Ghana, Nkrumah oversaw the African nation’s peaceable separation from Nice Britain and have become a passionate advocate for Pan-Africanism. He referred to as for African nations to unite as a physique that he dreamed of calling the USA of Africa, believing that unifying to regulate the continent’s pure assets would permit Africa to free itself from colonial influences and turn into a significant participant on the world stage. However he additionally embraced authoritarian techniques like declaring Ghana a one-party state with himself as president for all times, ultimately resulting in a coup that toppled statues of him and compelled him out of energy for all times.
Like so many nice figures of historical past, Nkrumah is a sophisticated individual, one who preached lofty concepts that his personal human nature prevented him from persistently residing as much as. But when anybody can declare to really know him, it might be Chris Hesse. The 90-year-old reverend served as Nkrumah’s private filmmaker all through his tenure main Ghana, following him around the globe with a digicam as he met with leaders like John F. Kennedy and tried to rally the heads of different African states to affix his trigger. Hesse shot over 200 hours of documentary footage within the early Nineteen Sixties, creating an archive of negatives that seize the primary few chapters of a nation’s historical past.
“The Eyes of Ghana,” Ben Proudfoot’s new documentary about Hesse that explores how the nation’s origins are inextricably tied to filmmaking, begins with the reveal of a juicy secret. Hesse’s movies have been all burned in the course of the 1966 coup that ousted Nkrumah, however the filmmaker secretly maintained an archive of his negatives in London. Whilst a nonagenarian, he continues to make the journey from Ghana to London every year to make sure that his life’s work is being stored protected, holding onto the hope that the archive might be digitized and his facet of the Nkrumah story will lastly be advised.
Hesse is beginning to lose his imaginative and prescient — a actuality {that a} man who spent his life wanting via a digicam is unwilling to just accept simply but — however his ardour for filmmaking hasn’t dulled within the slightest. “The Eyes of Ghana” sees him lecturing to a category of movie college students, mentoring documentary filmmaker Anita Afonu, and waxing poetic in regards to the Ghanaian movie business that briefly flourished within the Nineteen Sixties. As he tells it, Nkrumah noticed how Hollywood motion pictures helped forge a coherent cultural identification and thought Ghana might obtain one thing comparable with a powerful government-backed movie business (yet one more alternative that toes the road between liberal assist of the humanities and authoritarian tendencies). He constructed a whole studio ecosystem, and the nation was stuffed with cinema palaces displaying each American and Ghanaian movies to crowds of keen moviegoers.
“The Eyes of Ghana” is concurrently a tribute to the best way motion pictures can change the world, a postmortem for a nation’s movie business (an absence of which Hesse believes has completely hindered its identification), and a portrait of two males who have been with Ghana from the very starting. Hesse is infectiously charismatic, and seeing quarter-hour of his movie footage digitized for the primary time is a deal with for historical past buffs. (Earnings from the movie will go towards digitizing the remainder of the archive.)
The query of Nkrumah is extra difficult: Hesse clearly reveres his late boss and believes he bought an unfair shake from Western media, who have been threatened by his anti-capitalist, pro-Africa views. That looks like an inexpensive chance, although the movie doesn’t a lot interact with the opposing view. Hesse insists that he’s not making an attempt to sway anybody’s opinion a method or one other; he simply desires his movies to be seen in order that his nation’s historical past could be documented and other people can kind their very own concepts about Nkrumah’s legacy. That comes throughout as a half-truth — it’s obvious that he believes that his movies will trigger the world to see his good friend in a extra constructive gentle — however it’s laborious to argue with the notion that our understanding of historical past could be higher off if we had entry to extra major sources a couple of difficult however extremely influential determine.
A talented documentarian who has gained two of the earlier three Oscars for Finest Documentary Quick, Proudfoot clearly understands the goldmine that his topic supplies. Hesse’s life experiences would make for an interesting film, even with out charisma, however the truth that the 90-year-old overflows with the enjoyment of being alive and endless ardour for cinema makes the director’s job lots simpler.
Proudfoot and his crew, together with Kris Bowers, pull all the proper (if predictable) emotional strings, underscoring Hesse’s recollections with majestic orchestral music match for an Previous Hollywood epic. The digicam crew finds angles that seize the twinkle in Hesse’s eye as he pores via outdated negatives and gazes up at shimmering projectors. Ditto for Edmund Addo, the growing old theater proprietor who has devoted his total life to reopening the Rex Cinema in Ghana, even on the expense of his relationships along with his kids. The video manufacturing is lush, the sentimentality laid on thick — it is a film that’s much more occupied with taking part in acquainted notes about how cinema is magical and storytelling is significant for the already transformed than taking a crucial take a look at its topics.
However… cinema is magical, and storytelling is very important. Clichéd as these tropes may be, they work for a motive, and it’s laborious to stroll away from “The Eyes of Ghana” with out a spring in your step brought on by the 90-minute love fest for this unimaginable medium. Hesse and Proudfoot take the lengthy view of historical past, making the case that even when Nkrumah did not implement his imaginative and prescient for a United States of Africa — hell, even when the following 10 individuals to choose up the baton fail too — the dream will endure as a result of now we have Hesse’s movies conserving it alive. The arc of time is lengthy, however it bends towards justice, “The Eyes of Ghana” argues, and flicks might help bend it a bit of additional.
Grade: B
“The Eyes of Ghana” screened at AFI Fest 2025 after premiering on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment looking for U.S. distribution.
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