TheOrator.Press Film News & Review Special! A New Director’s Cut of 1991 Award-Winning, African, Ghanaian Film ‘Ama: A Voyage of Discovery’ Inspires Us To Revist The Recurring Issues of The Afr0-Caribbean Diaspora. And Over 30 Years Later, It’s Still As Relevant As Ever. September 2023

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Culturally Clever Afro-Centric Class, Respect & Precision On Screen

(And Now Tech Conscious Kwesi Owusu Has A Podcast Too)

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TheAfricanDawn Podcast Hosted By Film Director & Screenwriter Kwesi Owusu @kwesi5700

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During The Post Screening Q & A Session TO.P Asked Co. Director & Screenwriter Kwesi Owusu About The Dated Computer Scenario, Bearing In Mind The Film Was Rescreened As A Director’s Cut To Celebrate Its Release Just Over Thirty Years Ago In In 1991. The Directors Cut Is About Amping Up The Film’s Best Bits And Perhaps Trimming Down Other Scenes For The Good Of The Movie. So It Provided An Opportunity For A Number of Updates. And Central To His Presentation Was The Notion of The Importance of Technology. So We Asked Why Not Present A More Contemporary Computer? To Us The Chunky Computer Stuck Out Like A Sore Thumb.

He Told The Attentive And Diverse Audience (Which In Our Estimation Was Circa Two Thirds Capacity of The BFI’s Screening Room 2) It’s Not About The Device But The Message. African Cutlure Does Not Have To Be Static As Though It Can Only Exists In A Museum. It’s Constantly Everpresent, Living, Evolving And Relevant.Even In Relation To Technology. He Wanted To Retain The Authenticity of The Technology That Was Emerging At The Time. To Change It Would Be To Virtually Do A Re-of The Film, Which He Says Is Not What They Wanted.

He’s Nonetheless Acutely Aware That Technology Has Totally Moved On Within Those Thirty Years And Developed Phones That We Can All Carry Around In Our Pockets And Multi-Task On As They Are So Much Smaller And Slimmer Than The Big Old Clunky, Chunky, Big Box Computers. They Are Now Not That Much Thicker Than The Floppy Discs From Back In The Day (Which Themselves Have Now Morphed Into Very Little Memory Cards Or Skinny Oblong Memory Sticks). Today’s Computers Are Subsequently Multitasking As Phones, Cameras, Communication Centres For Social Engagement or Business Relations, Incorporting Access To Social (Or Anti-Social) Media & Mobile Work Spaces. In Fact He Says:

And He Should Know! Because He Actually Knows The Film Like The Back of His Hand. He Is Afterall An African Culture Expert And Has A Docturate On The Subject And Has Worked With Fellow Experts. His Co. Director, Ghanaian Educated Nii Kwate Owoo, Studied Film At The London Film School And In 1970 Subsequently Made The First, Brave, Ground-Breaking Documentary Film About The Appropriation of African Cultural Art And Artefacts By The British Museum.

So Much So That It Was Even Banned By The Then Ghananian Government For Being “Anti-British”. [His Film “You Hide Me” Is Critically Aclaimed As One of The Most Important Documentaries Ever Made In Terms of African And British Property Relationships.] This Highlights The Quality of Filmmakers Involved In The Production of This African Cinematic Classic. Now Ironicaly The News Is That A British, British Museum Employee Has Allegedly Been Stealing Artefacts From The British Museum Itself (A Taste of Their Own Medicine Some Might Say).

It Was The Former Publication West Africa Magazine (In Circulation 1917-2005) That Had The Courage To Run With Owoo’s Film And Brought It Critical Acclaim Through Its Support. Both Men Were Part of The African Dawn Movement Based At The African Centre (Then Located In Covent Garden) And Also The Black Cinema Collective Which Saw Them Become Owners of The First Black Owners of A Cinema. They No Longer Own The Cinema But @kwesi5700 Hosts The Nostalgically Named TheAfricanDawn Podcast. He Informs Us He May Be Writing A Book Next Year About The Cinema Ownership, So Watch This Space.

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