‘The Eyes Of Ghana’ review: Warm documentary profiles Ghanian cinematographer Chris Hesse

Dir: Ben Proudfoot. Canada. 2025. 90mins

As the personal cameraman for Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the newly independent state of Ghana, during the 1950s and 60s, Chris Hesse had a front row seat for some of the most significant moments in Africa’s 20th century history. But he preferred to remain behind the camera – until now. Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Proudfoot’s rich, celebratory film pays tribute to Hesse’s contribution to capturing Ghana on film as the veteran cinematographer, now in his 90s, passes the baton of his knowledge, and his back catalogue, to a new generation of Ghanaian filmmakers.

Affectionate, if conventional approach

The Eyes Of Ghana screens in London following a premiere in Toronto and a run of US festivals. Canadian filmmaker Proudfoot has a knack for showcasing inspirational but largely unknown figures. He has two Oscars to his name, both earned for documentary short films: 2023’s The Last Repair Shop shone a light on four unsung figures who made it their mission to bring music to schoolchildren; The Queen Of Basketball (2021) told the story of a pioneering female Olympian basketball player.

With its themes of Africa reckoning with and wrenching free of its colonial past, despite a fair amount of resistance and interference on the part of the US and Europe, The Eyes Of Ghana has a thematic kinship with both Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat and Mati Diop’s Dahomey, if not the same inventive formal verve or creativity. But Proudfoot’s affectionate, if conventional approach, together with the Obama stamp of approval (Barack and Michelle Obama are listed as executive producers), should make this an accessible and warmly received title at further festivals.

Kwame Nkrumah is a contentious figure in Ghanaian history, branded by some as a dictator who was out of touch with the people of his country. But he grasped the importance of cinema in building a cultural identity, and invested heavily in a cinema infrastructure, including a film studio. Hesse, who accompanied him around the world, saw him as a force for change, an idealist who had a dream of a ’United States of Africa’, free from the structures of European colonialism.

Hesse’s eyes are now starting to fail, with glaucoma threatening to rob him of his sight. And the archive of film that he shot was destroyed following the military coup that deposed Kwame Nkrumah from power in 1966. But Hesse has two secret weapons. One is a sharp mind and a keen memory. The other is the fact that the many negatives, including powerful footage of Nkrumah addressing the UN, remain safely stored in an archive in London.

The documentary follows several strands, one of which is Hesse’s quest – supported by filmmaker Anita Afonu – to get his archive digitised and made available for the next generation of Ghanaian filmmakers and historians. Another digs into a separate aspect of Ghana’s film legacy: the cinemas. The Rex, once a popular outdoor venue in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, has fallen into disrepair. Guarding it from the developers who threaten to pull it down is caretaker Edmund Addo, another older statesman of Ghana’s cinema culture.

The exchange of ideas gives the film its vital energy: Hesse lectures to an appreciative audience of young Ghanaian filmmakers and encourages them to ask questions of him. And his friendship with Afonu is a nourishing combination of affection, mutual respect and shared goals. But the film’s main selling point is Hesse’s fascinating restored archive, only fifteen minutes of which appear in the film. Profits from this picture will be reinvested in the ongoing restoration project, with the aim of digitising Hesse’s remaining negatives and making them available for the world to see.