Director Nicole Amarteifio is building a television empire in Accra in the hopes redefining how of the world sees African women.
On a muggy Saturday in July, actress Joselyn Dumas is pacing the set of The Republic in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, trying to decide how to hold her purse. The director, Nicole Amarteifio, wearing fuchsia Nikes and a gray shirt reading black girls are from the future, nods as her lead actress begins to channel a woman thousands of miles away. “You know who I see in this scene?” Dumas asks. “Viola Davis in How to Get Away With Murder. I see it! You know, this is how she holds her bag … ” With that, Dumas stomps off, bag clenched in her fist. At a bend in the hallway, she pauses, rethinking her approach—maybe her character is more of an Olivia Pope, the lead character played by Kerry Washington on Scandal. Amarteifio agrees, and this time when Dumas walks, she swishes back and forth, all hips and pouty lips. “No one spends this much time shooting a pilot,” says Mawuli Gavor, an actor on the show. “Nicole does every take until it’s perfect.”
Amarteifio has reason to aim for perfection—television executives in the U.S. and millions of viewers worldwide are watching. Known as the “Shonda Rhimes of Ghana”—a nickname referencing the powerhouse creator and showrunner behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder—Amarteifio is a symbol for the future of African entertainment. Best known for An African City, the 2014 Web based series that set the girlfriends-navigate-love-and-career premise of Sex and the City in Accra, the 34-year-old is countering the stereotype that often portrays African women as a poor, tragic monolith. “I’m really trying to change that narrative,” Amarteifio says. “To show a representation of black women that you rarely see.”
This story is from the October 2016 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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This story is from the October 2016 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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