The 2022 Accra edition of the 48 Hour Film Project has highlighted Ghanaian creative talents and rewarded excellence at the just ended film competition at the National Theatre.
The second edition of the international film festival, brought together the best Ghanaian talents in the filming space, including writers, producers and directors as well as creative editors to compete with each other.
With over 600 participants, 11 teams of 60 members were assigned to create a short film over the weekend with a maximum 7 minutes duration and were scrutinized by some pioneers of filmmaking in Ghana including the likes of David Dontoh, Nana Yaa Serwaa Sarpong and Larene Manaa Abdallah.
After submissions, all films were screened publicly on September 24 at The National Theatre of Ghana.
The film “Heroines (the brave rescue)”, by Eric Aryeetey and Team Seers, emerged as the “Best of the Accra 48HFP”. Their film scooped up several awards including Best Editing, Best Directing, Best Special Effects & Makeup, Best Cinematography and the Audience Award.
They will be slated to compete with over 100 city winners across the world at the 48HFP competition at the Filmapalooza Film Festival.
George Annang and his team “Black Net” came second with their film “BABA”. They also won Best Use of Props.
Best Acting went to the film “Don’t Rush” produced by Augustine Mensah and his team Cool Wonders Productions.
Kwabena Danso brought his team ‘Maddrenegades’ in strong and creative. They took home third place with their film IN “PAIN-TING”. In addition, they won Best Sound Design and Best Use of Line of Dialogue.
Best Writing and Best Use of Character went to “I Heard The Drum Talk” produced by Lawrence Adjei-Okyere and his team The Misfits.
The Black Amazons led by Sarah Dowuona did incredibly amazing with their film and the production process. They checked every aspect of the requirements, hence, receiving the award for Best Production Process and Ethics.
“This is a competition that people of all ages, skill and experience levels as well as the new filmmakers had to deal with the value of deadlines. It pushed them to end the weekend with a finished film – something very hard to do in the real world,” Kingsley Lims Nyarko, Producer of the Ghana 48 Hour Film Project shared.
He furthered, “Filmmakers find that seeing their film on the big screen in front of a live audience is thrilling and an experience they will never forget. All films shown are eligible for audience recognition, and those that were submitted on-time were judged for various awards”.
The Accra edition of the 48 Hour Film Project was in partnership with National Theatre of Ghana and support from the Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD).
About 48 Hour Film Project
The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The competition has been active since 2001.
In the weeks after the 48 hours of filmmaking are complete, screenings are held in each city and a winner is chosen to represent that city at Filmapalooza—a festival that features “best of” screenings of the winners from each city.
Filmapalooza is hosted by a different city each year. The most recent Filmapalooza, in 2022, was held in Washington DC.