Kwaw Ansah's Love brewed in the African pot.
African films continue to face many problems competing with other films on the international level. The more the film industry fights for international recognition, the more it lags due to many reasons.
African films are only watched by Africans and other Third World countries. According to film critics, the stories used for most of the African films are insignificant, and thus, if the African film industry wants their films to be accepted on an international level, then they must base the films on good stories.
Kwaw Ansah’s “Love Brewed in an African Port” tackles the residual effects of still-recent colonialism on the minds and hearts of the Ghanaian people. Despite the problems and barriers, Kwaw Ansah’s “Love Brewed in an African Port,” released in 1981, achieved success both in Africa and on the international level.
Ansah’s hope in making the film was that it would prove to be popular both with African audiences and well-regarded critics and peers. He was successful on both grounds.
The film earned awards worldwide, including the prestigious Omar Ganda Prize for most “remarkable direction and production in line with African realities” at the seventh Pan-African Film Festival (FEPACO), the first to be awarded to a film from an Anglophone country; the UNESCO film award in France; and the Jury’s Special Silver Peacock Award for a genuine and talented attempt to find a national cultural identity at the International Film Festival of India.