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Dear Oprah–A prince and a shaman on a quest to free their people from a tyrannical overlord, but who must first achieve the impossible by uniting all the clans of Akan, was a movie storyline sure to peak my curiosity. Facebook can be like that, throwing up random happenings in your network of contacts that are often more miss than hit. But this one looked different. Won’t you take a look?
I caught up with Akua Ofosuhene, director/co-producer of Anokye’s Sword, to find out if there was any substance behind the fabulous images that grabbed my attention. Hopefully, they will grab you and the team at Harpo, too.
Your film is based on the history and legend Okomfo Anokye (the lawgiver), and Osei Tutu (the warrior), both co-founders of the Empire of Ashanti. Is there a message in it for a modern audience?
Anokye and Tutu grew up in a world where people’s identities were fixed by blood and custom. They realised that the only way to improve their fortunes and that of generations to come was to re-create themselves, based on their aspirations. They developed a confederation that ignored peoples past and instead stressed what each had contributed to the act of union. I think this is a powerful concept for a modern audience. We live in a period when people are divided by ethnicity, sexual orientation and religious conviction. Each group longs for equality and fairness and yet cannot see how to achieve this. Each group has contributed blood and lives in two world wars and yet remain disenfranchised and cannot come together. I think our modern world has never been so ready for a story like this. We need to start thinking outside the box about what it is we want to be in the future. What kind of world we want to leave to our children, and how we can achieve that. The story of Anokye and Tutu opens a new way of thinking about identity and equality.
Who wrote the film and what inspired the author(s)? Are you familiar with the magic realism of Ayi Kwei Armah in Two Thousand Seasons or The Healers for example?
I wrote the original story and treatment. Oludipo Agboluaje is our script writer. He is a former lecturer in African Literature at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), so he understands that in Africa the world of the spirit and reality can be very closely linked. I recently read The Healers for the first time, and really liked it, but my first introduction to West African magic realism was Ben Okri’s The Famished Road. It helped me understand that there is an African sensitivity when it comes to exploring the spirit and the unseen.
The images we’ve seen so far from your film are extraordinary. What does animation bring to the project, and how will the script live up to the promise?
Originally, the project was to be a documentary with some animation, but when Lily Ross, my co-producer, read the synopsis and saw the artwork of Nando Nkrumah (art director), she knew it should be an animation. For me, as director, this has freed me to tell the story in a different way. I have been allowed to rework the narrative of a true story to make it suit a modern audience.
Oludipo Agboluaje is an extraordinary writer, after seeing the production of his play The First Wife at the Soho theatre, I realised that Oludipo writes in English, while leaving you with the feeling that you are listening in the original African language. This is an extraordinary ability. I think the Oludipo’s script is what will bring the artwork to life.
Oludipo Agboluaje, Nando Nkrumah and I, work very closely together. So if you think the artwork is good, wait until you see the moving images and hear the spoken words. We hope to have a trailer by spring 2010 as we approach the finest acting talent of Africa and her Diaspora for suitable voices and music.
What are your distribution plans for the project?
Our plan is to work hard to get good international distribution. Distributors, at present, ignore huge chunks of our planet where black people live because of the way they divide the world. There is too much concentration on the American market and an accepted doctrine that Asia does not consume black / African films. We are looking to work with sales agents and distributors who specialize in different world markets so that the magic of our film can be seen and our art can get a fair chance of doing well. The international distribution of Kirikou & the Sorceress is a film we have studied very carefully, and we hope to capitalize on its success. Nollywood and Ghallywood distribution models tend to get ignored by the mainstream, even though they are the only profitable source of African film making. We intend to explore all distribution channels open to our film.
What audiences do you envisage for this film, and what lasting impression should they take away after seeing it?
Anokye’s Sword will appeal to a family audience. This has always been important to me. My son is seven years old, so the only films we watch together have PG certificates. I find that the best ones inform us both. They lead to conversations about big concepts, such as fairness, the ability to change, the importance of standing up for what is right, looking after the environment, and so on.
The Anokye story is universal and one that I feel people around the world will enjoy. Most of the world has heard of the legend of King Arthur and the sword in the stone. But it is we Ghanaians (Akans) that have an actual immoveable sword in existence. Most colonized peoples lost their most sacred treasures, but we in Ghana fought and kept the Golden stool. This is a very powerful symbol. My hope is that this film leads to conversations about the kind of world we want and the importance of preserving nature. I do not think that one film can change the world, but it can add a new line of dialogue. Perhaps, most important for me, is that Africans should be reminded that we have chosen our destinies before and we can do so again.
How does the internet aid you in your work?
The internet is vital in our strategy to break down walls and move mountains in reaching our core audience. This production started with no budget. We have a strong will to tell this story. We know that the first thing any film executive will say when shown a screenplay for an African project is “there’s no audience for a ‘positive’ African film,” so it is our business to build that audience! The internet is the cheapest and most effective way to find out if anyone out there wants to hear and see this story. So far, so good, the response has been astonishing. We have had contact from people as far away as Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Nigeria and Brazil. Most of these contacts are not donating money, but they are still capital because they are helping us to reach a wide and diverse international audience hungry for different stories.
Our strategy has been two fold. First, to raise awareness and build an audience, which is why we have made public the artistic stages of the production. The second, has been to raise the first portion of the pre-production budget. For example, we decided to allow people to have a character based on their likeness for a £50, so we could begin to have the artwork drawn. Each time we release artwork online, we increase engagement and donations to the project, this we hope will lead us to the larger sums we need to bring the production to life. We initially released the mood board, which contains the colour palette and real life references from Ghana that I wanted to use to influence the first poster.
We have also released the first painted scene from the animation, but to see the full picture, we ask that you to become a member of the website, which gives you full access to members-only material. A month or so later, we added all the images that we had worked through to get to that final look and style of the animation. We are currently drawing up most of the characters and locations, so we are thinking up new ways of releasing that artwork into the public domain. This, we hope, will help us raise the £7,000 needed to make the trailer.
Who are your key players and what do they each bring to the project?
We are very fortunate to have a dedicated team who support the production wholeheartedly. I, Akua Ofosuhene, am the director and the film’s co-producer with Lily Ross. I work on Anokye full-time. I am also a mum and I do event filming work, while we are in pre production. Nando Nkrumah, art director is based in Germany and comes up with all the amazing pictures you’ve seen. I met Nando online when I was researching the documentary about Komfo Anokye and Osei Tutu. Nando had a series of illustrations about Anokye called Sankofiction on Myspace. We talked online for about a year before we finally met. Oludipo Agboluaje is the scriptwriter; it was the happiest day of the production so far when he accepted the job as writer. We know that we will need the highest calibre talent to bring this production through. That is why we always go straight to the top. Time Out called Oludipo ‘One of Britain’s best young writers.’ Paola Brunetti is our PA, Fatima Oliwer and Makeba Boateng look after PR and marketing. Jacob Webb is our production secretary.
Which film-makers inspire you and why? What’s next?
My favourite film-maker is Spike Lee. He has enormous energy and drive. I am also a big fan of Ishmael Balgrove from Rice & Peas production. I like their documentaries and their independent film-making spirit. Our immediate objective is preparing our investment documents, which we will soon send out to prospective backers. We are also working on the trailer at the moment and planning our presences at Cannes 2010 where we hope to raise the production budget.
The Anokye story is larger than just a film. We are working with an author to bring out a range of children’s books and will be posting free downloadable work sheets for parents and children to use at home. Our documentary, The Komfo Anokye Story, is currently in post production and will be on sale through Amazon and our website in December 2009.
Are there any challenges, financial or otherwise?
Most of the challenges we face in the making of Anokye are financial ones. Animation is an expensive art form. The preproduction alone is costing around £100,000, the production costs will be in the millions and so will the cost of distribution. Naturally there are personal challenges involved in trying to make a living while we are in this preproduction phase, but I feel I was born to make this film so all obstacles just have to be got over. End of story.
How can readers support?
Readers can support the production of Anokye’s Sword by donating or investing in the preproduction process. No matter how small your generosity, we hope this project will offer something for everyone who would like to see this story come to life.
Readers can buy Anokye merchandise from our website. For just £20, they get a bag, a pen, a poster and two postcards. For a donation of £50 or more, they can have an animation character based on their likeness. Always a special treat for children. We are lucky enough to have found the face of our young Anokye this way. He came to our first fundraising event at the Bernie Grant Art Centre in September 2009.
Our investment options promise a 10% return on capital on the first day of production, as well as government tax breaks for investors in films. We are planning an investors meeting in London’s West end in the New Year. There, we will present our business plan and the names of the acting talent involved in the project. If you would like to learn more about investing and be sent an investment pack, please contact us.
We are always happy to work with freelance journalists involved in the arts, internet and marketing arena as a way to get our extraordinary story of courage, hope and perseverance out into different segments of the media. Related Posts:
- The Perfect Picture
- Sylvester Stein Republished
- No Place To Be Somebody
- The Straight Story (Review)
- Precious – Black, Fat and All In Your Face?
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