AFRICA’S HIDDEN TREASURES

As they begin their journey, towards a new life long adventure of self-fulfillment, self-discovery and hard work toward achieving their dream, these five rising stars from Ghana are anxious to share their talent and their wondrous culture that emanate from their every word and in all of their intentions for the future.

Second Issue (P. 72)

By Emily Bowers

When they get together, their collective ambitions take on a life of its own. They laugh at each other’s jokes, they call each other family, and they support their shared dreams and ambitions.

"There are a lot of things hidden inside all of us here and we’re going to bring them out,” says 25-year-old Belinda (Belle) Siamey with a confident nod of her head.

Her declaration is greeted with a chorus of "Amen!" from her four close friends, Frost Asiedu, Samuel Ruffy Quansah, Seayram Esamboye and Joyce Tonye Akagbo.

One afternoon, in the typical Accra tropical humidity, the five promising young actors take a break from one of the twice-weekly classes of the Toronto Pictures Film Academy, to laugh and discuss their hopes for the future of the Ghanaian film industry and their own careers.

The five promising young actors all held leading and key roles – four as actors, one as costumer – in Toronto Pictures’ harrowing new movie about Trokosi: Punctured Hope.

Filmed in Ghana with an all-African cast, Punctured Hope tells the shocking story of one Trokosi slave’s imprisonment and escape.

Apart from the legacy of telling this story to a world that remains largely ignorant of the slavery still going on in Africa today under the guise of religious tradition, Toronto Pictures is developing a whole new landscape for filmmaking – the discovery and development of talent in places largely untouched by Hollywood.

The five actors’ skills impressed Toronto Pictures’ filmmaker Bruno Pischiutta and co-executive producer Daria Trifu enough to sign each of them to a six-year contract. And, as Punctured Hope hits world cinemas, there are already plans in the works for a second made-in-Ghana film.

For Belle Siamey, Punctured Hope wasn’t just her first step toward fulfilling a dream of becoming an actor, it also consisted of telling her own frightening, personal story of life as a Trokosi slave.

While the pain of her year’s imprisonment is etched on her face and in her tightly clasped manicured nails, she perks up when she talks about her future.

"I wasn’t acting and all of a sudden I have acted in an international production," she says, her wide eyes lighting up her petite face framed by her ever-changing hairstyles – today it’s fluffy blond braids.

"I was nobody, and all of a sudden I’m on the screen in front of the whole world," she says.

Siamey, currently completing the secondary school education she missed when she was held as a teenager in the shrine, hopes to become a lawyer and to work on cases of human rights abuses one day.

While for Siamey, Punctured Hope was about empowering herself by telling her own story to the world, for the other four it was realizing the dream of almost any film actor – having a key role in a Hollywood production.

"I’ve been given an opportunity for me to prove myself in Hollywood, to compete with Tom Cruise," declares the confident 23-year-old Samuel Ruffy Quansah.

Quansah laughingly calls himself the papa of the group, as the lone male in the group of Ghana’s rising stars. The boisterous actor drops American slang into his speech, agreeing with statements the others make with a firm nod and a "fo’shizzle".

With a denim cap perched on a mop of African curls and his eyes shaded by a pair of mirrored glasses, Ruffy, as everyone calls him, bounces his knee and gestures expressively as he talks, as the others laughingly try to quiet him down. But his voice only gets louder as he talks about the impact Toronto Pictures – and especially director Pischiutta – has had on his budding career.

"Bruno had the time for me, to explain the role, the lines," Quansah says. "When he explained (the script) to me, I understood it differently, now I knew what I was really to do."

He, like the other actors, proudly speak of the talent potential in Ghana and Africa, and says that Toronto Pictures has realized what so many other production companies have yet to.

"I think Toronto Pictures is the eye for Africa right now, they have helped the world see Africa through the eyes of Punctured Hope, and that is a great thing,” Quansah says, while the others agree.

"There are some treasures here in Africa," Siamey says.

Director Pischiutta says he believes the actors can find success in an international market, and then return home to Ghana to boost the developing film industry there, which is struggling now to compete with its prolific West African neighbour, Nigeria.

"There is an enthusiasm in these young people that is amazing," he says.

Frost Asiedu, a 23-year-old drama student at the University of Ghana, smiles and apologizes for the sore throat that has reduced her voice to a rasp. She leans forward, wanting to make sure her words are understood. A small gold crucifix dangles around the neckline of her blue and white dress.

She agrees that the potential for talent in Africa is deep.

"It is still difficult for people to tap the talent we have here in this country," she says.

Asiedu explains that she was pleasantly shocked and grateful when she learned Toronto Pictures wanted to help develop her skills.

"I had never shot an international movie, not even a Ghanaian movie, this was my first,” she says. “I was ready to give it all out because I knew I had the talent embedded in me and I needed it to come out."

For Asiedu, like many of the others, shooting Punctured Hope was the chance to also prove to her family she could become a successful actor. In Ghanaian society, where the opinions and directions of family members hold much sway over the decisions young adults make, gaining this acceptance was vital.

Asiedu’s family tried to push her into a career in marketing, something they thought would give her a stable life. Asiedu says her grandmother especially was confused about her desire to act.

"She didn’t understand what it was all about," Asiedu says. But after working on Punctured Hope and telling her family about the future possibilities both with Toronto Pictures and any other acting opportunities that could come her way, she says her mother, father, two brothers, and even her grandmother are now supportive.

Quansah even went to college and studied information technology and marketing as his father tried to steer him toward a banking career.

"It wasn’t my thing," he says. "The family thought I was going wayward. My daddy said if I wanted to do this thing (acting) he wouldn’t support it."

But Quansah’s role in Punctured Hope and the subsequent offer of a contract changed his father’s mind.

For Joyce Akagbo, 22, her adopted mother – her aunt – couldn’t understand why her niece left the house each day, yet never came back with a paycheck. She remembers her aunt’s ultimatum:

"‘If you don’t listen to me, I’m going to get rid of you’," Akagbo recalls.

But Akagbo’s success in Punctured Hope also brought her family around, like the others’. The public relations student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism says her education now helps her learn to communicate and deal with the public, skills she brings to her budding acting education.

She says she enjoyed communicating the message of Trokosi and its devastating effects on untold thousands of women who have suffered through it. She says she would like to make more movies with a social conscience to educate not just the world, but her fellow Africans who should demand an end to such cultural practices.

"There are people in Africa who are ignorant about some things," she says. "So I would love to make a movie that would teach my fellow people something that this is not right, you don’t have to do this."

For 28-year-old Seayram Esamboye, the challenges of Punctured Hope were quite different than for the other four.

Esamboye was in charge of costuming the cast, and she says she was eager to meet the high standards set by Pischiutta and Toronto Pictures.

"This was not easy," she says, running her fingers through her long brown and purple braided hair. "Especially when you talk about an international movie, you have to do your best."

Esamboye, who had previously acted in one Ghanaian movie, says she divides her time between her acting career and classes at the Accra-based Toronto Pictures Film Academy and a store selling ladies handbags that she manages with her sister.

She says her husband of two years fully supports her career ambitions.

"We’re lucky they came here to find out that we have the talent in us," she says.

And that’s one thing these five actors, who have become close friends through the filming of Punctured Hope, have in common: ambition.

"I believe that I have something that can make me one of the greatest that ever came from Africa, or the world," Quansah says, to the nodding approval of the others. D

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