“Don’t be afraid. Keep on filming.”
The African country of Ghana has a rich history in the cinematic arts. Nonagenarian filmmaker Chris Hesse knows this more than anyone on the planet. Through his time as a cameraman for the nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, Hesse learned the trade of filmmaking and preserving footage that might be valuable to later generations.
Unfortunately for Hesse, when the eventual dictator Nkrumah wanted ultimate power in Africa, coup leaders who overthrew him ordered all of the footage and Ghanaian films to be destroyed.
Fortunately for 2025 international audiences, Hesse is living proof that nothing, not celluloid, ideologies, or pieces of art, can stay hidden forever.
Hesse is known in some Ghanaian circles as one of the country’s only living professors of film. The son of a priest, Hesse felt the calling of filmmaking when he reached adulthood and ultimately accepted a job as the personal cameraman of Nkrumah. Tasked with documenting all of Nkrumah’s speeches and meetings with foreign dignitaries, Hesse learned of Nkrumah’s appreciation for Hollywood’s Golden Age and the power that cinema has to give a nation its identity.
“The Eyes of Ghana,” the opening night documentary of the Toronto International Film Festival, is a showcase for Hesse to reveal his cinematic masterpieces for the very first time in a generation. Footage not seen on a movie screen for six decades, after the negatives were hidden in London out of fear of being destroyed, was seen by audiences at the festival for the first time in what has become Ghana’s cinematic legacy. Director Ben Proudfoot (“The Last Repair Shop”) and the film’s secondary subject, filmmaker Anita Afonu, craft a symphony of visuals while giving context to a complicated footprint in African history.
Hesse is an enormously fabulous subject, exponentially more youthful than most 90-year-olds could hope to achieve. He also remembers everything about his time with Nkrumah, when the leader was viewed as a hero for Ghanaian independence from colonial Europe and a champion for the country to establish a film industry before taking it away. But as Nkrumah’s power grew in the 1960s, and his title of President shape-shifted into Dictator, Hesse was there to capture every single moment of the leader’s rise and fall from grace.
As a documentarian in his own right, Hesse came to appreciate the power of storytelling. Proudfoot and company lay bare all of Hesse’s mistakes, achievements and bravery in the face of a true autocratic system of government. But as a filmmaker, Hesse understood that he was there to document history, not to intervene in its revolution.
“The Eyes of Ghana” is a superb movie, executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground, a fact not lost on the audience at TIFF, who had the pleasure of hearing from the former world leaders in a filmed introductory message for the festival. The Obamas praised Proudfoot for bringing this unique story to life, and remarked on Hesse’s willingness to come forward as a subject he’s waited for all of his career.
The result is a momentous documentary about the struggle to survive, an industry and country in constant change, and a story that prides itself on the highest principles of preservation.
It doesn’t hurt that Proudfoot’s “The Last Repair Shop” collaborator, Kris Bowers (“The Wild Robot”), brings an original score to the forefront of a documentary bursting at the seams with strength and positivity. Bowers’ score is triumphant in its regard for Hesse’s contributions to cinema, lifting the spirits of the Ghanaian people featured in the film with light and energy. In fact, it’s the times when Proudfoot’s camera zeroes in on people’s faces, with Bowers’ score flickering in the background, that really emphasize the potency of this story.
“The Eyes of Ghana” concludes with a “Cinema Paradiso”- inspired ending, overflowing with hope and love for the people of Ghana and the rapid change that has occurred within a short period. The next generation may not view Nkrumah’s ideas as criminal, but with Hesse’s work on full display on a silver screen, they can better understand the struggles their parents and grandparents endured for quite some time. It’s history unfolding through 24 frames per second and quick snippets, with Proudfoot and Hesse at the helm.
