Filmed at Accra, at Kedze and in Keta over a period of a year from October 1950 until September 1951, The Boy Kumasenu was the first feature film made by the Gold Coast Film Unit and brought together a non-professional all-African cast. This included a schoolboy from Cape Coast in the title role, the granddaughter of the Chief of the Ada people (Angela Nanor), the editor of the Weekly Gold Coast News (Guy Warren, who was also a world-renowned drummer), a doctor and sculptor (Dr Oku Ampofo, with his real-life wife) and one of the film’s Production Assistants (Frank Tamakloe) (The Times, 3 January 1952, 8).

The Boy Kumasenu was edited in London – with rushes viewed at Merton Park Studios in December 1951 – and was finally completed in May 1952. The film’s premiere in the Gold Coast was attended by the Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah, while the British governors of Nigeria and the Gold Coast subsequently attended a screening with the cast at the Opera Cinema in Accra (West African Review, September 1952, 889). Yet despite these high-profile screenings, The New York Times noted that ‘initially there was no local enthusiasm to book it [The Boy Kumasenu] on the reasoning that the African likes to see things far removed from his own daily life’. The article, from April 1953, explained that after ‘a contemptuously small offer’ from the main operator, the film was bought by a rival ‘for about £500’ with an additional ‘£300 voluntarily paid afterwards’. It added that ‘The showmen’s take to date is reputed to run into five sterling figures’, while the head of the Gold Coast Film Unit, Sean Graham, noted in correspondence with Basil Wright in July 1952 that the film ‘is playing to a packed audience in the biggest cinema of Accra night after night’. ‘From the box office point of view’, he continued, ‘they couldn’t have a better picture: this makes the Syrian exhibitor happy, but not us, because – not trusting to the man’s book-keeping (they have no entertainment tax here) – we settled for a lump-sum cash in advance irrespective of takings’ (‘Letter dated 10 July 1952’, BCW 1/16/1). African Affairs also noted the film’s popularity, and claimed in October 1952 that ‘40,000 people are said to have seen The Boy Kumasenu in three weeks’ (African Affairs, October 1952, 279). The New York Times attributed the success to the ‘eagerness of the populace to see (and see again) themselves or their friends and their familiar surroundings and way of life on the screen’ (New York Times, 26 April 1953, II, 4). The article reveals some uncertainty and contradictions in the perceived wishes of African audiences, but the success in 1949 of African Jim (also known as Jim Comes to Jo’burg), an urban drama made with an all-African cast and featuring a prominent African jazz score, suggested an increasing desire for these representations of modern African life.

The Boy Kumasenu also received international recognition, gaining a diploma at the Venice Film Festival and a nomination for the ‘Best Film from any Source’ at the 1953 BAFTA awards.The film had its British premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1952, where it was introduced by its associate producer, Basil Wright. Wright, a major figure in British documentary cinema worked on a ‘part-time basis’ from December 1951 to March 1952, viewing rushes and providing comments to Sean Graham (‘Letter dated 4 December 1951’, BCW 1/16/1). C.Y. Carstairs writing about the festival in Colonial Cinema, praised The Boy Kumasenu and noted that while ‘hardly typical of the work of local units’, it could be a ‘portent’ for other African pictures as it ‘has commercial ambitions’ and ‘has already had uproarious success in the Gold Coast’ (Colonial Cinema, December 1952, 78).

The film also played at the Berlin Film Festival in 1953, after which it was reviewed by Variety who praised it as ‘amazingly well done film fare’ and a ‘remarkable entry by a completely unknown little film nation’. The review noted the ‘good insight into African habits’ and suggested that this, combined with the ‘very obvious’ western influences, could appeal to US arthouses (Variety, 15 July 1953). West African Review argued that the film ‘dramatises one of Africa’s most urgent problems’ and considered the film an endorsement of African leadership: ‘In the end only one of his own people who has already successfully crossed to the new world can guide the boy Kumasenu and others like him to a more hopeful future’ (West African Review, September 1952, 884).

Although the film was originally released in ten reels, the Gold Coast Film Unit also offered a ‘short version’ of six reels, which was reviewed in the British film press in 1957 (and is the version discussed here). Kinematograph Weekly suggested that this ‘dramatic documentary’ served as a ‘warning against allowing uneducated African lads to run before they can walk’. It suggested the film needed further ‘drastic cutting’ and ‘its usefulness, such as it is, is strictly limited to the classroom’ (KW, 31 January 1957, 20). Monthly Film Bulletin criticised the film’s resolution of the move between ‘tribal life and the twentieth-century’ as ‘vague and sentimental’ but argued that ‘The Boy Kumasenu can be considered as a first step towards an authentic African cinema’ (MFB, March 1957, 28).