Cape Coast embraces Kwaw Ansah
When Kwaw Ansah stood up last Sunday, January 21 to make some comments to an audience which had just watched his ‘Love Brewed in the African Pot’ film at the Ridge Royal Hotel in Cape Coast, he couldn’t help recollecting a scene where Kofi Appiah tells his daughter, Aba, that he sent her to Cape Coast to get a good education and to become a lady.
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That bit in the 1980 film was an indication of the filmmaker’s fondness of Cape Coast. He, therefore, didn’t hesitate when he was invited to be part of the initial round of activities to mark the 25th-anniversary celebrations of Oguaahen Osabarimba Kwesi Atta II.
Kwaw Ansah has always held the view that a tool used to suppress Africans and Black people is the audio-visual medium. So he also relies on that medium to express appreciation of his culture and encourage black people to stand up with pride for what is theirs.
These sentiments run through his four documentaries shown on January 19 at a programme dubbed ‘’Night with Kwaw
Paintsil Ansah’. The 40-minute ‘Crossroads of People, Crossroads of Trade’ is a 1995 project commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution which narrates Africans’ way of life before their encounter with Europe.
The 22-minute ‘Ebibirmba Gyenabew: State of Our Continent’ emphasises the filmmaker’s sadness at how Africans have embraced Western ways to the detriment of their values.
‘Why I Do What I Do’ is eight minutes of Kwaw Ansah explaining the rationale behind his Afrocentrism, while the 12-minute ‘Clarion Call of Mama’ was triggered by the killing of George Floyd in the United States.
Some of Kwaw Ansah’s explorations in fabric and sculptural design, poetry and music composition were also presented to the audience which included the Oguaahen and some members of the Oguaa Traditional Council.
Kwaw Ansah made the first comments after the screenings and was blunt in his views on why Black people, despite being blessed in many ways, still go begging in Asia and the West.
He said God hasn’t been wicked to us since he has supplied us with much of our needs. Despite that, we are lagging behind other races.
“We have shirked our values and going after other people’s ways. We are praying more than we are working. Some people are cleverly carrying all our wealth away and we are happy to look on,” the well-known filmmaker said.
The Oguaahen said he was impressed with the documentaries and wished they could be shown in schools for young people to learn more about their history.
He was also at the ‘Love Brewed in the African Pot’ screening. He pointed out that Kwaw Ansah was on a mission to enlighten black people on their values and he (Oguaahen) firmly supported him.
The Oguaahen’s 25th-anniversary celebrations continue till September and Kwaw Ansah’s ‘Heritage Africa’ has been scheduled to show at the Ridge Royal Hotel on February 2.
