THE EYES OF GHANA

"A rich, celebratory film honouring one of Africa's forgotten cinematic pioneers."- Screen Daily

At ninety-three, Ghanaian documentarian Chris Hesse is racing against blindness and time. As the personal cinematographer to Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president and one of the defining figures of African independence, Hesse filmed a nation transforming before his eyes. His camera recorded political awakening, public celebration, Pan-African ambition and the complicated birth of a new republic.

After the 1966 coup that removed Nkrumah from power, much of that visual history vanished from public view. More than a thousand surviving films remained overseas, largely unseen and inaccessible to the people whose history they contained. Now Hesse is determined to rescue, restore and repatriate the archive before his sight fails and before another generation grows up without seeing these images.

Two-time Academy Award-winning director Ben Proudfoot follows Hesse’s mission as both an archival quest and an intimate portrait of a master filmmaker approaching the final chapter of his life. Yet The Eyes of Ghana is not only about recovering the past. Hesse shares his knowledge with younger Ghanaian filmmakers, including Anita Afonu, creating a bridge between the generation that filmed independence and the artists who will decide how Ghana’s stories are seen next.

“A touching paean to the power of the artform and the people behind it.” — Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 2025

AWARDS AND FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
*Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, Hamptons International Film *Festival. Best Documentary, Africa International Film Festival.
*Nile Grand Prize for Best Film, Luxor African Film Festival.
*Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, Annapolis Film Festival.
*Jimmy Stewart Legacy Award, Heartland International Film Festival.
*Pamela Segger Canadian Feature Documentary Award, Lunenburg Doc Fest.
*Best Cinematography – Feature Documentary, Centre Film Festival.
*Grierson Award nominee, BFI London Film Festival.