Quick Facts
Biography
Sam Greatorex Aryeetey (born 23 August 1929 or 1927) is a Ghanaian film producer, film director and writer. He is often credited as the director of the first Ghanaian feature film, No Tears for Ananse.
Life
Aryeetey was born August 23, 1929 in Accra. He was educated at Accra Methodist Boys' School and Achimota School. Among the first students at an Accra film training school for West Africans established by the Colonial Film Unit in 1948, Aryeetey joined the new Gold Coast Film Unit under Sean Graham. In 1952 he moved to work as an editor in England.
In 1963, Aryeetey returned to Ghana to work for the Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC). No Tears for Ananse, written and directed by Aryeetey, was the first GFIC production. It was based on Joe de Graft's play Ananse and the Gum Man', a story about the trickster Ananse.
In 1969, Aryeetey became Managing Director of the GIFC. Manthia Diawara has argued that, by choosing to employ Europeans rather than Africans to “make films for Ghana”, Aryeetey “set back the progress of film production in Ghana to where it had been when the Colonial Film Unit left”.
Works
Films
- (as editor) I Will Speak English, 1954
- (as editor) Mr. Mensah Builds a House, 1955
- (as editor) The Welfare of Youth, Editor
- (as editor) Sporting Life, 1958
- (as producer) Hamile the Tongo Hamlet, 1964
- (as director) No Tears for Ananse, 1965 or 1968
- (as writer) The African Deal, 1973
Books
- ‘’Harvest of Love’’, 1984
- ‘’Other Side of Town’’, 1986
- ‘’Home at Last’’, 1996