Hand-painted works are often wildly unfaithful to the movies they portray – reinterpretations that sometimes resulted in threats, insults and even physical attacks from viewers who…

Hand-painted works are often wildly unfaithful to the movies they portray – reinterpretations that sometimes resulted in threats, insults and even physical attacks from viewers who felt duped Sitting on his porch in Teshie near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and dabbed it carefully on to his canvas – a flour sack – adding blood to a knife being wielded by a man. Higher on the canvas, he had started on an outline of a skull. Heavy J was creating a poster, but not as you might have expected for a horror film. Instead, it was for the animated fairytale The Little Mermaid. The man with the knife wasn’t a killer but the film’s kind-hearted prince, Eric. The skull was also unrelated to the story. “We add more to make people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu. Hand-painted film posters by local artists were a hallmark of Ghanaian film culture from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, used to advertise screenings for neighbourhood venues known as video clubs after organisers realised that the original posters were not attracting audiences. Plot lines were regarded as little more than jump-off points for humorous and surreal flights of fancy. Artists working for different video clubs competed to make the best “forgery”, as they described their interpretations. The practice began to wane around the turn of the century as more Ghanaians gained access to electricity and their own TV sets and video players. Many video clubs went out of business and painters pivoted to create other work. But by then the posters had attained global interest, popularised in books and foreign exhibitions, and old and rare paintings became prized collectibles. There was a lull in interest in newly painted posters in the early part of the 21st century, but demand has risen, driven by online marketing and a receptive customer base of film lovers in the west. Deadly Prey Gallery has been working with artists to preserve the culture of making hand-painted film posters, while helping meet the increased demand.