Ernest Kofi Abbeyquaye
Learned Ghanaian filmmaker Ernest Kofi Abbeyquaye says he belongs to the school of thought that standards of filmmaking in Ghana have fallen and therefore there is the need for present-day filmmakers to get proper training.
“I will say that the standards have gone down. When it started nobody who was not trained practised…Now I have been on location where I found the director, the cameraman, soundman and all of them as ignorant as anything but they are all producing and when they produce that’s the product we get (sic),” Mr Abbeyquaye told NEWS-ONE in an exclusive interview.
According to him, the movies produced around the 1960s were of great standard and the reason was that qualified filmmakers handled the various departments of filmmaking.
“The films were mostly made by Ghana Films Corporation. Even when we went into video, we called the directors from outside to make the films and that some people referred to as the ‘golden age.’ We used directors inside Ghana Films Corporation and we brought directors from outside but they were qualified directors. Scriptwriters were all qualified scriptwriters. We used qualified and experienced cameramen, soundmen, etcetera.
“But it is a different case today. Right now when I say the standard is gone, it’s because if you take a hundred films, about seventy of them would have been made by people who have had no training, no time to get experience.”
Mr Abbeyquaye is a legendary Ghanaian filmmaker. He started in the 1960s as a student in the pioneer class of the Arts Council Acting School and graduated from the University of Ghana School of Performing Arts (Drama and Theatre Arts Major).
He undertook postgraduate professional training at the prestigious National Film and Television School at Beaconfield, UK.
In 1978 he became a group tutor at the National Film Institute (NAFTI), rising to become the first head of studies and also the institute’s deputy managing director. He worked for many years with Ghana Films Industry Corporation (GFIC), rising to become its executive producer. He also worked briefly with Samuelson Film Services Ltd., UK.
Ernest Abbeyquaye has undertaken many assignments in film production. He has travelled extensively throughout Ghana and abroad. He has written and directed numerous features and documentaries. He came under fire whilst documenting peacekeeping operations of Ghanaian soldiers serving with UNIFIL in Lebanon. He has also taken two pilgrimage tours to Jerusalem.
Ernest has filmed in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Eritrea. During his filming career, he interviewed heads of state, generals, academics, politicians, farmers, market women, workers and children.
He served as a UNESCO consultant on the use of film and television for rural development. He was a local co-ordinator for Yorkshire TV in King Lions Law and also during the production of The Dying of the Light (1992). He was local fixer for Screen Two: Deadly Voyage (1996), an HBO-BBC production in Ghana. He co-directed a pilot, “Hopes on the Horizon,” a Blackside (Boston) and Multimedia Africa Production funded by the Ford Foundation. He directed a stage musical, “Fairy Tale Africa”, a Ghana/Nigeria musical drama earmarked for a U.S. tour.
Abbeyquaye took part in the films, Hamele: The Prince of Tongo as an actor and No Tears for Ananse as a narrator in 1964/65. He now works with Trumpet Africa Productions and Emerald Films.
He said the current standards of Ghanaian movies would be improved if present filmmakers trained themselves properly.
“Training for film falls into two parts: either you will learn on the job or you will go to a formal school. Now learning on the job means that you have people who have themselves been trained properly and experienced who will then train you.”
However, he thinks those who are training the new filmmakers now are themselves not well experienced and trained.
“I am not dismissing those people but my [problem] with them is that they don’t have anybody training them. They are just doing the thing. I don’t know if you are a Christian but I hear Christ said that if a blind man leads a blind man they will all fall into a ditch; and that’s the situation we are in now,” he concluded.
