Documentary film practice at the Institute of Film and Television, Ghana: truth claims, oral histories and documentary strategies

Abstract

This article explores a case study of how documentary film practice is taught at the Institute of Film and Television, Ghana. Drawing on the practices of its authors – themselves documentary film-makers and former students of the institute – we explore some of the contemporary challenges facing how we approach the theory and practice of documentary film-making in contemporary Ghana, including how our students might best approach contested conceptions of the truth, and how such notions of the truth may be articulated within Ghana’s living oral traditions.