Ghana Film Premieres: Sunday 16th December

by worldwrite | November 22, 2007 at 03:08 am

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The final two films in WORLDwrite's Pricking the Missionary Position film series are complete! As the fiftieth anniversary year of Ghana's independence from British colonial rule draws to a close, it's a good time to reflect on the autonomy and freedom that still needs to be fought for. In this spirit WORLDwrite and Chew on it productions would like to invite you to an end-of-year celebration and premiere of Keeping Africa Small and I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here! The event will be held at 7pm on Sunday 16th December at the Rich Mix Cinema, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1. For tickets please click here.

Keeping Africa Small

From small scale projects to HIV/AIDS programmes NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) charities and aid agencies are everywhere in the developing world. They are all the rage in the West too, and are seen as the good people who want to save Africa. But, however well meaning NGOs may be, their programmes often get up the noses of everyone, from African fishermen to shanty town inhabitants. Their idea of improving people's lives by promoting the basics only are a far cry from the aspirations of those they seek to help. Serious development and growth is definitely not in the NGO dictionary. Shot in Ghana, Godbless, Waffa, Deroy and local fishermen and women are articulate and angry. They loathe the peanuts offered and sanctimonious lessons in good behaviour. They want industry, jobs and material advancement and for NGOs and aid agencies to stop treating them like children. As Godbless tells us: "Africans have big brains, big aspirations... and want to live in liberty."

I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here!

As Westerners celebrate nature and the so-called simple life, many in the developing world yearn for the comforts of urban modernity. Shot in Ghana, we learn that many would rather live in an urban shanty town than stay stuck in subsistence life in rural areas. Subsistence life means mud huts and mind-numbing toil. Helen wants a proper job. Cephus wants a commercial farm and a Jacuzzi, not mud walls and thatch. Comfort wants her kids off the farm and into education. De Roy explains that at least in a shanty town people can have access to a clinic, menial work, electricity, drinkable water, paved roads and TVs. I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here! is the final documentary in the Pricking the Missionary Position series. It is packed with hard-hitting truths which may disturb Western romantic notions of rural life.