I liked Ghana immediately.

From the moment I set foot in the country, I felt a liberating energy which permeates the atmosphere.

There's a life, a spirit, a vitality that's bursting with creativity and a seeming drive to live life to the fullest, as if every moment is precious and should be celebrated.

Hi, I'm Stephanie.

I'm a 33-year-old American filmmaker, and a complete cinema nerd.

I love the oldies, the goodies, the New Waves, or Golden Age, you name it, I'm in.

On my 33rd birthday, I decided to travel the world to meet and document other filmmakers my age.

Travel with me to over 33 countries to meet the storytellers who are dynamically challenging the status quo of the world today.

Together, we will watch their films, hear their stories, engage with their cultures, and perhaps, learn a little bit about life, love, cinema, history, and me.

My name is Peter Sedufia.

I'm a filmmaker from Ghana, and I am 34 years.

Present day Ghana has a diverse population in terms of different tribes, languages, cultural practices, and religious beliefs.

And for the most part, they all seem to co-exist harmoniously as a unified country.

Ghana has been called "Africa's greatest success story," as it was the first independent nation and first democracy in sub-Saharan Africa, gaining its independence from colonial Britain in 1957.

And Ghana paved the way for many other African nations to obtain self-rule in the 1960s.

It is a common phrase in Ghana to say "you are welcome," and I heard it everywhere.

Almost immediately followed up with a request to take a selfie.

And finally the declaration of "I wish to be your friend."

Who can refuse such hospitality?

Peter Sedufia is a 34-year-old filmmaker in Accra, Ghana.

His films are refreshingly funny and highly entertaining, with a heightened style and a unique Ghanaian perspective.

Shall we carry on now, my lady?

I'm not your lady.

Stop calling me that!

Yes, stop calling her that.

She's my wife, not your lady.

I'm sorry, my lady.

Films from Ghana rarely have an international presence, but I predict that Peter will break onto the international scene and create a buzz for his home country as a filmmaker to watch.

After studying Business, Peter graduated with a degree in Filmmaking from Ghana's National Film and Television Institute.

His films have done quite well with local audiences and he is highly prolific, releasing an average of one feature film per year.

When I met Peter, he was producing his 4th feature film to play in mainstream cinemas.

42 and 44A take one.

There's nothing like the first day of a film shoot.

The excitement builds around the story that's been written and rewritten, rehearsed by actors representing a brave new world.

Designed by artists and craftsmen, to bring the camera in and call “ACTION!” on day one, is an exhilarating experience.

It was a thrill to be on set for the first day of Peter's film, "Aloe Vera."

Veras are the most intelligent and most powerful species of humans on Earth.

I'm in love.

She's a Vera, Verari.

How could he be in love with a Vera?

Peter filmed in a rural village, three hours away from Accra.

In the town of Dabala.

In the Volta Region of Ghana, part of the former Togoland.

"Aloe Vera" is set in a dystopian fantasy world where there is a border between yellow and blue, a border in which it is forbidden to cross.

Part of what makes Peter's film set so special is that he is providing a mentorship program to the local kids to learn a trade on set.

Many of the village children and teens were on set observing, learning, and helping out.

And many of the crew he employed were locals from the town of Dabala.

Peter is paying it forward.

"Aloe Vera," is actually a world of its own.

Where the citizens of that world cannot agree whether the egg came before the chicken, or the chicken before the egg.

As so this created a fight, and then caused a division.

And so they created a barrier or a border that no one or nothing must cross.

Your brother is acting weird, and I want you to keep an eye on him.

Remember you're undercover.

Okay!

Don't show your face.

If you see an Aloe or anything belonging to them on your land, blow your whistle.

[Ball slams againt wall] [Whistle blows] I just want to expose how... How stupid, how silly we can be sometimes in the things that we take seriously and then start fighting over.

So when you watch "Aloe Vera," you realize that some of the things we fight over, kill each other for, insult, abuse each other for, are really no issues.

Peter is like an old soul.

So even the company is called OldFilm Productions.

So he has this, approach to his work, but he's very specific.

He knows what he wants, and he goes for it.

And that's why I keep working with him.

I mean, we have a, we always agree to disagree, But once we get to that point, you know that he's going to deliver.

[Stephanie] What do you predict for his future?

I feel if he stays in the trajectory that he's going, then there's going to be, more and better films, and every film is going to challenge the previous film.

If he stays on the trajectory.

But on the downside, also the space also has its own challenges.

And sometimes your art and your economics can be a struggle.

So, if he continues finding that balance, and not sacrificing his artistic vision, because of the economic challenges, I think that this the world hasn't seen the the best of him yet.

Stop the train, stop the train; you couldn't!

But that's not true.

I did.

Okay.

Where is it?

Let's go, let's jump on it now.

Talk to me about "Keteke."

So, once upon a time in my village, we only saw busses or cars, once in a week.

If you miss it, that's it; you have to wait until next week And so that's what inspired the story.

And then, "Away Bus" is also a story of two sisters, who had to raise money to pay for the surgery of their mother, or else she dies.

And so, when all means of seeking help have failed, they resorted to bus robbery.

Anyone who takes the first step dies.

You are holding toy guns.

Yes.

You can't shoot anyone.

We know.

Anyone who is ready to die with this crazy girl should move forward.

Shoot!

Shoot!

You know, I was Google-newsing you before coming here.

And you came up in a couple of articles, and it was talking about, you recently got married?

[Peter] Yeah.

[They laugh.]

I mean, but it Made it seem like you're... are you some sort of celebrity here?

Because it made it seem like you were; the article.

[Peter] No, I'm not a celebrity.

Because ideally, as an artist, I think, it shouldn't be about me.

It should be about your project.

When people love your work, they love you.

But when they love you, and don█t love your work, then it's nothing.

I don█t know if you get what I█m trying to say?

[Stephanie] Yeah, sure.

And so I'm sure if I was to be putting myself before my work, you would have found my name in a lot of other things.

[Stephanie laughs.]

Yeah.

In addition to Peter and Laurene, I spoke to a delightful mix of voices in the Ghanaian film industry.

Carl, a cinematographer off to chase the American Dream, while passionate about telling stories on Ghana's history.

Juliet, a Renaissance woman who went from star actress to Chair of the Board of Ghana's National Film and Television Institute.

And Alpha, the academic with a deep understanding of history, trying to build his dream of having a production studio for Ghanaian filmmakers.

For me, as a filmmaker, I strongly believe that if you tell your story, and if you tell your story the way you know it, and you're truthful for that to that story, you will find an audience.

Juliet Asante is one of Ghana's biggest advocates for the advancement of cinema, not just in Ghana, but across the African continent.

Her resume is mind-blowingly impressive.

As an actress, Juliet first appeared on HBO's "Deadly Voyage," filmed in Ghana She's the writer and director of the feature film, "Silver Rain."

And she created and runs the Black Star International Film Festival, the first of its kind in Ghana.

If that's not enough, Juliet has a degree from Harvard, and serves as the Board President of Ghana's National Film and Theater Institute.

Juliet has a strong worldview and a sense of where Ghana fits into it, historically and cinematically.

I could have talked to her for days!

You asked me, “What are the Ghanaian stories?” I mean, there's so much around us, from from my ancestors; when I started this conversation, I started talking about slave trade; I talked about what led to slave trade.

I talked about the journey from being slaves to now.

You can imagine, even politically, socially, culturally, the number of stories within that.

As African-themed stories have gotten more exposure, and people have just realized that, "Oh!

There█s actually a market for me telling my story.” I think that the narrative is kind of changing, and people are also becoming more confident in who they are.

And so we are feeling that moving forward, people will begin to realize more, that I can tell my story to the global community, but I can tell it in an authentic way, that is real to me.

And, you know, for me, I come from the background of a story is a story, a universal story.

The first permanent European merchants to arrive in West Africa were the Portuguese around 1471, followed by the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes, the Brits, and the Prussians; who all ended up participating in the Atlantic slave trade, exporting enslaved Africans to the Americas.

The early Portuguese explorers named the West African territory the "Gold Coast," because of the large quantity of gold mined here.

At this time, the Ashanti people were the dominant population, who had taken control over trade routes by the 16th century.

The Europeans who arrived to take advantage of the Gold Coast business opportunities, traded slaves, gold and other goods with the local Ashantis.

And in 1874, the Gold Coast was declared a British colony.

Cinema first came to the Gold Coast in the 1920s, but it was only accessible to the British elites.

The average Ghanaian would not have been able to view most moving pictures.

The Brits eventually caught on to the power of cinematic storytelling, and decided to use it to their advantage.

Britain created the Gold Coast Film Unit, which was a branch of a larger Colonial Film Unit, working to "inform" the people of their colonies to British ways of civilization.

The Gold Coast Film Unit made such films about proper hygiene and health practices, growing crops, educating youth, and how to teach "proper" English.

[Alpha] In the world of film, what was it, 1895?

And we probably didn't start seeing film in this part of the world until 40 years later, 1935.

And then by late 1940s, early 1950s, the colonial mentality about filmmaking changed slightly.

And then you had people who started making films, and having Africans in front of the screen.

And then the political wind started blowing.

Leaders on the African continent thought we needed to have our own independence: late 1940s, early 1950s.

I guess the struggle was strong.

So Kwame Nkrumah, for example, in Ghana, and Sékou Touré, and all those people on the African continent wanted to have independence, so we can run our own countries.

[Stephanie] This is Alpha!

A good friend of mine from our days at Tisch Asia, where he was a star student at NYU's film program.

Upbeat and wise, it was Alpha who inspired me to travel to Ghana to explore the world of West African cinema.

Alpha has been teaching Documentary Filmmaking at NYU's Study Abroad Program in Accra for over 15 years.

When Alpha invited me to speak to students on campus, I could not resist the opportunity to reunite with him, and see what wonderful things he's doing as a filmmaker and academic in his own home country.

One, I must say that storytelling is innate in every human being.

We are the youngest on the planet.

But we have survived and kicked all of the other bigger creatures of the planet, because of our ability to tell stories and to socialize.

So every human being innately is a storyteller.

What I do in my class is just to teach them the language in which to tell those stories, which is the film language.

There is a new African in the world!

That new African is ready to fight his own battles.

And show that after all, the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.

[Crowd cheers.]

[Stephianie] Kwame Nkrumah was the first President of an independent African nation.

He denounced imperialism and spoke of a free and united Africa.

He became the darling of the Pan-African movement, and many African leaders of neighboring nations rose up as a result and fought for the independence of their countries in the years to follow.

Remarkably, Nkrumah also saw the potential of cinema to change minds and attitudes.

And he founded Ghana's National Film Industry, vis a vis the Ghana Film Industry Corporation in 1964, where he put great emphasis on educating the future filmmakers of Ghana.

Nkrumah took a play from the “British book,” essentially, to use cinema like the colonial masters before him, to change the mindset of a nation and form it in his own image.

Nkrumah wanted Ghanaians to be proud of their history and heritage, and he felt cinema was the best tool to express and spread these messages.

He also wanted Ghanians to be the ones behind the camera, so he sent his people abroad to learn the craft of filmmaking, to be educated and trained by the best in the field.

Our first president, Doctor Kwame Nkrumah, and bless him, because, he was such a visionary.

So we were one of the few African countries to have an international level studio.

And also have a lab.

And it was world class.

I think the vision was around the importance of film as driving and changing the narrative.

So we were people who had just come out of slavery.

We were a people who had just come out of colonial and end of colonial rule.

And it was so important to be able to influence that narrative, because we are people who are coming from something else, and becoming and transforming into something else.

By 1966, when Nkrumah was on a state visit to China, there was a military coup ousting Nkrumah's lifetime rule.

And for the next 13 years or so, a series of coups ensued.

This led to a period of military dictatorships, and a strong social conservative rule, that left no room for going out to the cinema.

And the film industry took a dive, practically disappearing for the next several decades.

The Ghana Film Industry Corporation was sold to a Malaysian firm, who converted many of the old cinemas into churches.

Still today, you can find church services held at rundown, abandoned cinemas.

By the early 1980s, as a result of the loosening restrictions of Jerry Rawlings' Presidency, independent filmmaking emerged in Ghana, with filmmaker Kwah Ansah█s feature film debut, “Love Brewed in the African Pot.

Followed up by King Ampah█s first film, "The Road to Accra."

What allowed filmmakers such as Ansah and Ampah to make their films, was the introduction of the VHS recording technology, which arrived on the scene in 1976.

Ghana is said to be the first country in the world to make feature films on VHS tapes.

The filmmakers of the 1980s and '90s made their own films, on their own terms, inexpensively, using this new analog technology.

They were producing so much content that their Nigerian neighbors took notice, and started traveling to Ghana, to learn and collaborate with the inventive Ghanaian filmmakers.

These collaborations between Nigeria and Ghana is quite possibly what led to the rise of the Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood, which has become the second largest producer of films in the world.

[Alpha] And then today, in the 2000s, it█s a another wave, where you have all these mobile phones that can shoot videos, you know, 1080p, WhatsApp, social media, and you have all kinds of people doing filming and having episodes of comedies, all kinds of interesting things.

So that has been the journey and the story.

[Stephanie█s voice] I met Carl Marx, a filmmaker in his 30s, at NYU Accra, through Alpha.

He ran the tech for my presentation to Alpha's students.

Carl graciously toured me around Accra.

He showed me to the now abandoned Rex Cinema; and the Accra Art Center, a bustling market in the city center.

Carl talked about his passion for preserving history in Ghana.

I could tell that filmmaking was a source of pride for him: something we have in common.

[Carl] So I'm a filmmaker.

I want to have a difference attached to my films.

I want to have a symbol, a signature to my cinematography field.

[Stephanie] I'm really interested in hearing you talk about what dreams and desires you have for yourself in your life and career?

Back then, in film school, I was hoping to be one of the first DOP█s [Director of Photography] from Ghana to work in Hollywood.

And along the line, I had the ambition to travel out of the country to go work and all that, but, I still think it's not too late, but I sometimes feel I'm lagging behind.

I keep telling the young ones that I know, people who are younger than I am.

Those who are not married, those who don't have kids, those who don't have responsibilities now.

I tell them, "Hey, there's a lot for you to achieve.

Go out there and do it."

I usually put on my WhatsApp status, “Risk taking mode activated."

So that means when I activate that "risk taking mode," I'm all in.

I can take every risk.

I can go everywhere I want to go.

But now, I deleted that "risk taking mode," because, I can't take a risk at the expense of my wife and my child.

[Carl] I am a person that loves history, a person that loves, ancient stories.

Something that is, should I say epic?

Something that is taking you back to your roots.

I think young filmmakers should direct their cause more towards historical films, historical documentaries, stories about their past.

Those are some of the areas that people, young guys, should tackle.

[Stephanie] I arrived in Ghana just in time for The Year Of Return.

Throughout 2019, Ghana commemorated the 400th anniversary of the first Atlantic slave ships to leave its shores.

This is a monumental moment in history, that to this day, has a very deep impact on my home country.

One that deserves further reflection.

The first slave ship from Ghana arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.

Now, the President of Ghana launched a campaign in hopes to attract individuals of African descent from all over the world to visit Ghana.

In essence, to return home on a spiritual and birthright journey.

And so for me, for Ghana to take that first step, to say, “You're welcome back home.” “If you're black, you█re African, come back home.” and you have the right to come home.

And since the Year of Return was launched, we've had quite a number of African Americans coming home, including Steve Harvey, and then Samuel Jackson, who is doing a documentary on slave trade, and the roots.

But, there's the surface level of that conversation where it█s all, “Kumbaya!” “Let's go home!” or “We are home.” And then there's a deeper conversation of, how did this happen?

How did our own people, sell us?

How did we end up being there?

What's happened to us on that journey?

Who were we?

Then to some extent, I feel like we're not having that conversation.

But sooner or later those issues are going to come up, and I feel that filmmakers will have the unique opportunity to have that conversation.

But then there's also the contextual part of it, where: Where are African Americans in America today?

And what is it that is driving that?

How are they feeling a part of the society, or not a part of the society?

How is that feeling in going into “Oh, I have someplace else that I can go, but I have someplace else that I can go, but I don't belong to, or, “do I belong to,” or, “Who was I?” “Who were my ancestors?” And I feel like, as a filmmaker, I'm sitting here as an observer, and I'm interacting with quite a number of these African Americans.

I have interacted with them over years, but now I'm interacting on a different level, and I feel that there's a lot of opportunity there.

[Stephanie] What do you see yourself doing when you█re around 44-years-old?

When I'm 40, I think that I want to be, a very, very, very accomplished filmmaker, with an international appeal, that I don't have to spend my money making films again.

I don't have to use my money making films; I use the money of other people to make films, as in investors.

I make it beautiful, they like it, and then give me another job.

Filmmaking is one thing dear to me and I want to continue making films.

[Carl] This is Ghana.

This is my country.

I█m proud to be a Ghanaian.

I'm very proud to be a Ghanaian.

And I love it when people come in and they say they love Ghanaians So I want people to know.

So that they won█t have the perception of Africa, or Ghana.

To be “that savage,” “that's wicked,” that's like people... Somebody said, “Africans are like...” Somebody who has never come here say, “When you go to Africa, or when you go to Ghana, they live on trees.” No!

[Carl] Some towns in Ghana have some buildings that you cannot see in some parts of the world.

[Juliet] So the future looks good.

If we can begin to sparce out those little things, and show how relevant we are as filmmakers.

Not just being a mirror, but also impacting in real ways, impacting culture.

[Stephanie█s voice] It can be easy to focus on the complications of a colonial past.

But in Ghana, life is all about the here and now, paving the way for the brightest future possible.

There's a refreshing embrace of storytelling, and that anyone with a story is welcome to tell it.

I find the filmmakers of Ghana to be especially compelling individuals.

I love the heightened visual style and fantastical worlds of Peter's films.

I'm drawn to Carl's desire to preserve Ghana's rich history through cinema.

And I admire Juliet's tenacity and wordliness in building bigger and bigger opportunities for the filmmakers of Africa.

Historically, Ghanaians have proven to be creative pioneers, time and time again.

And today, we see that this creative spirit is alive and well.

If you get a chance, go!

For “you are welcome,” and Ghana is calling.

To learn more about the “Cinema Nomad” filmmakers, and dive deeper into the exciting world of global cinema, visit our website, CinemaNomad.TV