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SPECTACLE ON SACKCLOTH
Julia Elmore enthuses about a disappearing artform from Ghana.

Raw Vision #60 Autumn/Fall 2007

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Excerpt:
Demonic serpents; a half-child, half-beast; blood-soaked heads and arms, removed by machetes - just a few of the disturbing images of voodoo terror and sci-fi horror that burst from the canvas of movie posters from Ghana. These potent paintings are the output of a brief period of around twenty years, beginning in the mid-1980s.

Cinema-going was long a popular activity in Ghana. The large towns, particularly the capital, Accra, inherited magnificent cinemas from the British colonisers, but over the years, faced with the difficulty of finding spare parts for their large 35mm projectors, these establishments closed down one by one.


As video became more widespread, the void was filled by a group of entrepreneurs who created small, mobile film-distribution empires. Armed with videocassettes, television monitors and portable gas-powered generators, they brought movies to towns and rural villages. At the same time, video clubs sprang up, offering Hollywood B-movies, Asian action films and Nigerian horror movies. Rooms equipped with televisions and video recorders became picture houses with wooden benches where films could be viewed for a modest sum.

 
River of MysteryAnaconda
Photographs courtesy Pascal Saumade, Pop Galerie, Paris
 
Raw Vision #60 cover

For more text and images,
see Raw Vision
issue #60


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