The Lost Archive: Why Ghana Must Film Its Present Before It Forgets Its Past

Ghana is living through moments that deserve to be remembered, but we are not recording them. Our festivals grow grander, our funerals turn into cultural exhibitions, our youth cultures keep shifting, our politics reshape themselves every four years, yet the cameras stay off. What is not filmed disappears, and Ghana is losing more than it realizes. Think about it. When we look for Ethiopian history, we find Haile Selassie on film. When we look for South Africa’s struggle, we see it immortalized in documentaries and cinema. Nigeria’s civil war, music revolutions, and urban cultures have all been turned into film, stored, streamed, and studied. Rwanda built an entire national archive from scratch after 1994, and today the world learns their story through film, because it was preserved.

But what does Ghana have? Fragments. Scattered footage. A few documentaries. Occasional TV specials. Nothing consistent. No national film memory. No institutional urgency. For instance, the “Dote Yie” funeral in Ashanti this year. It was more than a funeral, thus, it was Ashanti identity on full display. Drumming rhythms you won’t hear anywhere else. Kente patterns with centuries of stories. The architecture of respect, grief, and honour. A filmmaker could turn that into a Netflix cultural documentary with global reach. But did we document it? Did we even try? The answers are familiar, and disappointing. Ghana’s past is respected, but its present is neglected. We assume our culture will remain unchanged, or that someone else will capture it. Yet the truth is simple. Culture moves. People move. Communities evolve. And memory, unless documented, fades.

This is the gap that film fills. Film does what speeches, policy documents, and textbooks cannot do. It records faces. It captures voices. It keeps language alive. It preserves emotion, not just information. Film turns the fleeting into the permanent. And Ghana needs that permanence more than ever. Youth culture alone is transforming at a pace we are not keeping up with. The rise of the “Red” drug crisis, the shifting nightlife, the street fashion scenes, the new wave of TikTok content creators, the redefinition of masculinity and femininity, the political awakenings in campus halls, these are not footnotes. They are part of our national identity. If not filmed, they will be swallowed by time.

Our political transitions are also passing by undocumented. Ghana is a stable democracy, and that stability is a story the world respects. Yet we have not built a tradition of political cinema. No deep dives into elections, no long-form visual histories of our leaders, no cinematic examinations of our civic milestones. Kenya has them. Nigeria has them. Even Liberia has begun producing them. Ghana, ironically, has not. The institutions responsible for shaping this space have been too quiet. The Ghana Film Authority focuses heavily on festivals and permits. NAFTI continues to produce skilled filmmakers, but without a national pipeline that channels their talent into cultural documentation. The Ministry of Tourism is still playing it safe. The Ministry of Information focuses on PR, not preservation. Meanwhile, global platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Showmax are looking for authentic African stories with cultural and historical depth. Ghana has these stories, but we are not filming them.

There is a simple truth here: if we do not film our present, we will borrow our identity from others. When future generations try to understand Ghana, they will see more of our fiction than our reality. A few movies. A few series. Some music videos. That is not enough to tell who we are. We need a national film memory project. A coordinated system that documents our festivals, funerals, elections, youth cultures, regional traditions, and civic moments. A program that funds filmmakers to record our national life with depth and consistency. A cultural archive that the world, and future Ghanaians, can learn from. The good news is that Ghanaian filmmakers are ready. What they lack is the backing, the direction, the mandate. If the state provides this, Ghana will not only preserve its identity, but it will export it. Cinema is soft power. Film is national branding. Documentation is development. We are at a turning point. If Ghana wants to be seen, it must film. If we want to be remembered, we must record. If we want to shape our narrative, we must own the camera.

The world is watching Africa. Let Ghana give it something unforgettable to watch.

References
Africanews — Netflix to expand its operations in Africa (context on Netflix interest and investment in African content). Available at: https://www.africanews.com/2023/04/13/netflix-to-expand-its-operations-in-africa-building-on-its-success/

Fabric Data / MIP Africa report — African content on streaming (2024–2025 overview) (market data on African titles on streaming platforms). Available at: https://www.fabricdata.com/african-content-on-streaming-exclusive-report-for-mip-africa

Genocide Archive of Rwanda — digital archival practice and the value of audiovisual preservation. Available at: https://genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/

Graphic Online — Ghana launches 'By the Fire Side' storytelling series. Available at: https://www.graphic.com.gh/entertainment/showbiz-news/ghana-launches-by-the-fire-side-storytelling-series-to-revive-cultural-heritage.html

MyJoyOnline — Coverage: NFA film classification enforcement and policy moves (2025). Available at: https://www.myjoyonline.com/nfa-to-enforce-film-classification-laws-effective-may-1/

MyJoyOnline — Photos: Day 3 of 'Dote Yie' for late Asantehemaa (coverage and images from the recent rites). Available at: https://www.myjoyonline.com/photos-day-3-of-dote-yie-for-late-asantehemaa-nana-konadu-yiadom-iii/

   Comments0