Back In The Director's Chair

Kwaw Ansah: Ready with a 15-year love affair

Though he has not tackled any feature film project since Heritage Africa came out in 1988, Kwaw Ansah still remains one of the most easily-recognisable personalities associated with filmmaking in this country and he gets back into the director's chair from next Saturday to start shooting a series of feature-length films under the umbrella title of The Good Old Days.

There will be 24 90-minute films under the project but each will be treated like a feature on its own. Ansah wrote all the scripts for the films and says they are gripping family situation stories about love, tragedy and comedy which should appeal to audiences of all age brackets.

When the first shout of 'Action!' on the set from Ansah echoes through the Achimota forest in Accra on Saturday, it would incidentally be the last script from the envisaged 24-part project, The Love of AA, which would be tackled.

'The stories are set in the 1950s and 1960s and I started writing them about 15 years ago. We are taking off with The Love of AA because of its relevance to some current situations in our country.

What AA stands for is not going to be revealed till the film is finished,' says Ansah whose first feature, Love Brewed In The African Pot came out in 1980.

Between the release of Heritage Africa and now, Ansah focused most of his attention on getting his TV Africa project off the ground. Now that the television station is off and running, he can afford some time to start going on location again.

Most of the interior shots will be done on a specially constructed set at the Accra Trade Fair Centre.

Filming of The Love of AA is expected to take about four weeks and the director is looking to October for a premiere after which filming of the second movie would start right away.

The films would not go on television , neither would they be sold on DVD or VCD formats till they had done thorough rounds in the regions.

'A lot of investment has gone into this project.

Apart from my own resources, some like-minded individuals have also put in some money and we need to pursue prudent marketing strategies to recoup what has been sunk into The Good Old Days.'

Anima Misa, who played Aba Appiah in Love Brewed and Theresa Bosomfield in Heritage Africa, is co-producer on the project. She and Ansah have decided to use mainly fresh faces for the key roles in the films.

Perhaps the only face people might easily know among the main cast is that of Albert Jackson-Davis. The rest are new to the screen.

The crew for the project include Robert 'Bob J' Johnson as the Director of Photography. Amishadai Sackitey, another good photography brain is also on board. Sefa Bonsu is part of the sound crew and Oblitey Newman is Head of Production.

'Hard-working directors like Ivan Quashigah, Shirley Frimpong-Manso and Vero Quarshie have been doing well to uphold high production standards and I admire them for that. I'm happy to be back contributing again to good quality filmmaking here,' Ansah said.