We met Akosua Owusu at her editing suite in East Legon, two weeks before her third feature was due to lock picture. What follows has been condensed for length.
On turning down a distribution deal
“They wanted final cut,” she says, without pausing to consider it a difficult decision. “I’ve seen what happens to a film once someone else has final cut. It stops being the thing you set out to make.”
That refusal cost her a wider theatrical release. It also, she argues, is the reason the film still plays the way she intended two years later.
I would rather a smaller audience see the film I made than a bigger audience see the film someone else approved.
What she would tell a first-time director
“Fund the film in a way that lets you say no. That’s the whole lesson. Everything else is details.”
