Their most artistic collaboration, 2023’s “The Final Restore Store,” led director Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers to a Greatest Documentary Brief Oscar win the following yr. But it surely wasn’t a given Bowers would compose the rating for Proudfoot’s characteristic debut, “The Eyes of Ghana.”
“As a result of it’s numerous work, proper? It’s like, ‘OK, it’s six months of my life,’” Proudfoot informed IndieWire throughout an interview on the 2025 Middleburg Movie Competition. “While you resolve, ‘OK, this venture feels prefer it’s a part of my physique of labor,’ it’s a giant choice, one which I take critically.”
Although he has principally labored as a movie and TV composer on initiatives like “Inexperienced Ebook,” “Bridgerton,” and Authentic Rating nominee “The Wild Robotic,” Bowers’ work with Proudfoot additionally contains the Oscar-nominated quick “A Concerto Is a Dialog” as co-director. However becoming a member of him on this newer, longer, world enterprise has the composer excited “simply be part of what was already being created.”
“The Eyes of Ghana” is seen via the eyes of Chris Hesse, a Ghanaian filmmaker who documented the rise of President Kwame Nkrumah, often known as the person who liberated the African continent. Moreover, when colonizers tried to burn all proof of Nkrumah’s time as a revolutionary chief, Hesse snuck his reels out of Ghana, and right into a London vault, the place the footage has spent many years inside, ready to be digitized.
As somebody who grew up in Nova Scotia, Proudfoot was utterly unaware of most of this historical past. Whereas in Ghana throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, capturing a movie for UNICEF, “the entire van of us, the crew, we’re driving down this primary thoroughfare, and I noticed this unusually formed constructing and a statue of a person pointing. And I stated, ‘What’s that?’ They stated, ‘Oh, that’s the mausoleum for Kwame Nkrumah.’ And I stated, ‘Who’s Kwame Nkrumah?’ Each Ghanaian within the automobile circled and checked out me like ‘What the hell?,” stated the director. “We all know Gandhi, we all know Martin Luther King Jr., we all know all these figures from historical past who’re chargeable for main a motion that modified the course of a continent or lots of of tens of millions of individuals. However Kwame Nkrumah, I opened the file folder of my thoughts, and there’s nothing there.”
Naturally curious, Proudfoot inquired whether or not he might converse to anybody who knew the politician, and his crew excitedly pointed him towards Hesse, a now-nonagenarian who labored as Nkrumah’s private cinematographer, capturing all the pieces on 16mm and 35mm. Although they have been 60 years and an ocean aside, Proudfoot and Hesse turned quick associates united within the thought of getting the phrase on the market to keep up this treasure trove of footage. “That’s my mission in life,” Hesse informed the director.
Nkrumah was essential in jumpstarting the Ghanaian movie trade, constructing a studio to supply work that conveys an Africa that defies the expectations promoted by colonizers. “If I say, ‘Oh, right here’s a documentary set in Africa,’ you instantly have sure expectations of what that is perhaps, based mostly on documentaries you’ve seen previously or world starvation infomercials on the TV or no matter. Which isn’t a broad understanding of what’s happening, which was Kwame Nkrumah’s entire level within the first place,” stated Proudfoot.
By means of the topic of his movie, the director reveals how an vital a part of Ghana’s trendy historical past is entwined with a love of cinema. “We’re making a movie not about Kwame Nkrumah, not about Ghana, we’re making a movie about Chris Hesse and his expertise and the way he views it. And Chris Hesse is a rare movie artist, a cinematographer,” stated Proudfoot. “So when you’re making a movie a couple of filmmaker, you must deliver the most effective of all the pieces to the desk.” The director boasted how “large swaths of the film are shot in IMAX 70mm,” notably within the movie’s emotional conclusion, which was shot on 5-perf, 65mm celluloid on an IMAX digital camera. “That literal digital camera that we used, that got here to Ghana, got here from the set of ‘Sinners.’ Identical digital camera.”
Like Proudfoot, Bowers had not heard of Nkrumah, nor had he been to Ghana. Bower stated, “I’ve all the time simply been actually interested in any kind of scoring of an African venture.” Upon formally accepting the supply to as soon as once more work together with his pal Proudfoot, Bowers stated, “I’m conscious of the deep historical past and custom with music, and in order that was my first bit of pleasure as a composer, attempting to determine how you can incorporate a few of that into the rating.”
The gyil, the atenteben, and the speaking drum have been the three key devices that helped him obtain a extra African sound. “I’d ask concerning the gyil, which is a mallet instrument, and was asking, ‘What key does that play in sometimes?’ So if I write, I can write in that key. And the musician I used to be talking with was like, ‘Nicely, really that’s often tuned to whomever the singer is.’ And in order that made me impressed to tune themes to every of the characters’ talking voices and [spend] time transcribing the way in which they spoke, to see what key vary did they converse in.” For example, the charismatic Hesse was in the important thing of F Mixolydian.
To play the atenteben, a bamboo flute, Bowers recruited Dela Botri based mostly on spectacular movies of the Ghanaian musician performing. “You might watch him taking part in jazz riffs and all these items. So we have been like, ‘OK, we’ve acquired to get that man,’” stated the composer. Bowers was hesitant to make use of the speaking drum after the instrument’s prominence in Ludwig Göransson’s Oscar-winning “Black Panther” rating, however finally, “it’s such an enormous a part of Ghanaian historical past that it felt like I can’t not put that in there. And in addition, it felt bizarre that ‘Black Panther’ for some cause would make it in order that I can’t use an instrument after I’m writing a rating for an African movie.”
Bowers did, nevertheless, come to some extent the place inspiration started getting in the way in which of execution. “My first go of writing a few of the cues, taking all this info, once more, I spent a month finding out these items, I attempted writing a rating from a Ghanaian perspective. And it was one thing that wasn’t fairly becoming with the movie,” stated the composer. “The extra Ben and I talked about it, the extra I noticed it was my very own worry of not representing the nation effectively, and music effectively in that manner… This film is concerning the energy of and the love for cinema, and so [Ben] actually inspired me and helped me embrace simply taking all the pieces I find out about movie music, and I’ve discovered now about Ghanaian music, and simply attempt to make this as nice as attainable.”
He concluded, “I’m not Ghanaian. It really could be extra disrespectful for me to attempt to faux like I might write this Ghanaian rating. However extra so, simply attempt to take as a lot info as I can and be influenced and knowledgeable by that and write music from my coronary heart at that time.”
Producer Moses Bwayo (and co-director of latest Greatest Documentary Function nominee “Bobi Wine: The Folks’s President”) helped persuade the prolific, Oscar-winning shorts director Proudfoot to make this his characteristic directorial debut.
“My philosophy is that it’s our responsibility as filmmakers to not waste anyone’s time. And typically if you make a film, the thought is that individuals wish to escape. Actually, I do. Once I activate a film earlier than I am going to mattress or on a Saturday afternoon or no matter, I wish to go right into a world for just a few hours. I’m completely happy that it’s lengthy,” he stated. “However oftentimes with documentaries … you wish to perceive, you wish to study one thing, you wish to resolve the thriller, you wish to meet these folks, you wish to come out enlightened, knowledgeable, impressed. And so if that’s the explanation why you’re watching the film — which is completely different, there’s a unique type of intention — you don’t wish to spend extra time than you must. Loads of documentaries, particularly over the past 10 years, have been designed to suck up as a lot of your time as attainable. That’s why I’ve been so keen on quick movies, as a result of it’s the alternative.”
He added, “With this movie, though it’s within the class of a feature-length documentary, it’s rather a lot packed into 89 minutes. As my profession has gone on, what I’m dedicated to much less so is format, of quick type or characteristic movie, and extra simply magnificence and a richness. It couldn’t have been any shorter. And that the viewers appears like, ‘Wow, I took in rather a lot, I went from understanding nothing about this to understanding rather a lot, caring rather a lot,’ that pursuits me.”
In the end, “The Eyes of Ghana” stealthily circles again to the type of format Proudfoot is understood for, making reference to producer and movie topic Anita Afonu’s venture “Perished Diamonds,” which covers the historical past of Ghanaian cinema in 40 minutes, plus all of Hesse’s work. “These reels which might be within the archive, they’re primarily quick documentaries. So on the finish, it is perhaps a characteristic documentary, but it surely’s about an archive of quick documentaries, so I can’t escape it,” stated the director.
This resurfacing of Hesse’s footage is “the alternative of what’s occurring in America and numerous the world, which is historical past being erased, not having the ability to discuss a conflict on info. And that is a gap and a blooming of recent historical past, which I believe could be very thrilling,” stated Proudfoot. “We’re very proud to be part of that and drawing consideration to that, not simply in Ghana, however actually throughout all Africa. Chris traveled all throughout the continent telling tales in every kind of nations, as a result of Kwame Nkrumah would lend out his movie unit to all these different liberation actions. So it’s continent-wide, actually.”
“The Eyes of Ghana” is the primary unbiased characteristic produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s manufacturing firm Increased Floor, and has but to discover a distributor, however Proudfoot’s urgency lies extra with encouraging the digitization of Hesse’s archive than dashing right into a deal to launch the movie in theaters. “It’s nearly remembering why we made this film and persevering with to pound the pavement and discover individuals who get it, who perceive it, and who consider this is a crucial story that have to be informed,” he stated. “These sorts of tales, typically African narratives, they only get left off. ‘It’s not related, it’s not vital.’ It is vital.”
Proudfoot added, “A part of what we’re doing with the movie helps Chris in his mission to reframe this archive, not as a nice-to-have, however as a necessary piece of historical past.”
To Proudfoot, “The very best and greatest use of documentary is to get folks to concentrate, and let’s face it, do one thing about it. Not simply say, ‘That’s a pleasant documentary.’ [claps] ‘Right here’s an award,’ or ‘We expect you’re nice.’ So what? This archive, if we don’t concentrate, it’s going to be gone in 15 years,” he stated. “That’s what occurs to cinema, that’s what occurs to celluloid. In order that’s our hope, whether or not it’s the distributor or whether or not it’s discovering someone who actually cares about this, who has a connection to it, it should make a distinction on the earth. Leisure, for me, it’s not sufficient. I believe it should assist resolve that downside.”
“The Eyes of Ghana” world-premiered at TIFF earlier than taking part in Middleburg. It’s at the moment looking for a U.S. distributor.
