DECEMBER 9-10, 2020 | AVIATIONGHANA.COM

C r e d i b l e S o u r c e o f A v i a t i o n & T o u r i s m N e w s I n W e s t A f r i c a

Joby Aviation takes over Uber’s air taxi business, Elevate

Vflyair targets Q1 launch date in Ghana

Airlines are projected to lose US$66 for every passenger carried for the rest of this year due to what the International

Air Transport Association (IATA) describes as the “unrelenting” nature of the crisis faced by airline due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The projected loss translates into US$118.5 billion this year for airlines. The losses may, however, reduce significantly next year if countries re-open their borders to travelers by Mid-2021.

“Assuming borders re-open by mid-2021, the industry will ‘only’ lose US$38.7 billion in 2021. Now is the time for governments to step up. The US$173 billion of support provided to date has enabled the industry to survive, but more is required to carry the industry through to next summer.

“IATA has identified a range of market stimulation options that will support the viability of air routes while encouraging people to travel. Without aviation’s $3.5 trillion contribution to global GDP, there can be no broader economic

Joby Aviation, an electric passenger aircraft developer, said on Tuesday it would take over Uber Technologies Inc’s flying taxi unit, Elevate, the second cash-burning business the ride-hailing company has sold off in two days.

Joby did not disclose the terms of the deal, but

Vflyair Ghana Limited says it is hopeful of launching its operations in Ghana in the first quarter of next year, subject to the various regulatory approvals by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).

Airlines to lose US$66 per passenger —IATA

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recovery,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Total demand was down 70.6% compared to October 2019. This was just a modest improvement from the 72.2% year-to-year decline recorded in

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September. Capacity was down 59.9% compared to a year ago and load factor fell 21.8 percentage points to 60.2%.

International passenger demand in October was down 87.8% compared to October 2019, virtually

Jet Fuel & Crude Oil Price ($/barrel)

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UNWTO works to restart tourism in Bali

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Airlines to lose US$66 per passenger —IATA

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UNWTO has concluded a first in-person visit to Bali since the start of the pandemic. The delegation met with key figures from the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to advance collaboration as the country gets ready to reopen its borders to international visitors and restart tourism.

In partnership with Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, UNWTO hosted a special Capacity Building Workshop on Restarting International Tourism in Bali. The workshop counted on the participation of more than 30 leaders from across the tourism sector, with a further 150 experts and leaders joining virtually. Discussions focused on the government’s strategy to restart tourism, including the formulation of policies, procedures, health infrastructure and immigration protocols adapted to reflect the new reality.

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mahendra Siregar welcomed participants and thanked UNWTO for its leadership throughout the crisis. The Vice Minister also underlined the importance of collaboration as both the public and private sectors work

together to restart tourism for the benefit of not only visitors to Bali but for all stakeholders, including tourism workers and service providers.

Enhanced protocols for tourism’s restart

Outlining the steps being taken to adapt and make tourism safe, Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy Giri Adnyani announced that the Ministry has issued Cleanliness, Health, Safety and Environment Sustainability (CHSE) protocols and certification programmes. These

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are based on protocols established by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Transportation as well as by UNWTO and ICAO (the International Civil Aviation Organization).

Also addressing the workshop, the Vice Governor of Bali, Tjokorda Oka Artha  noted that tourism arrivals to Bali fell by 12% in the third quarter when compared to 2019 levels. However, since re-opening to domestic tourists at the end of July,

numbers have started to rise again. Now, the government plans to open Bali to international tourists again before 31 March 2021.

Alongside the workshop, the UNWTO delegation conducted visits to the airport and several tourist destinations. Here they saw first-hand the implementation of new health and safety protocols developed by the government of Indonesia to prepare the reopening of Bali to international tourists. UNWTO also took part in 13th Bali Democracy Forum.

unchanged from the 88.0% year-to-year decline recorded in September. Capacity was 76.9% below previous year levels, and load factor shrank 38.3 percentage points to 42.9%.

Domestic demand drove what little recovery there was, with October domestic traffic down 40.8% compared to the prior year. This was improved from a 43.0% year-to-year decline in September. Capacity was 29.7% below 2019 levels and the load factor dropped 13.2 percentage points to 70.4%.

“Fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 and governments’ continued reliance on heavy-handed quarantines resulted in another catastrophic month for

air travel demand. While the pace of recovery is faster in some regions than others, the overall picture for international travel is grim. This uneven recovery is more pronounced in domestic markets, with China’s domestic market having nearly recovered, while most others remain deeply depressed,” de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO added.

African airlines’ traffic sank 78.6% in October, improved from an 84.9% drop in September and was the best performance among the regions. Capacity contracted 67.5%, and load factor fell 23.8 percentage points to 45.5%.

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Vflyair targets Q1 launch date in Ghana

Joby Aviation takes over Uber’s air taxi business, Elevatesaid Uber had also agreed to invest a further $75 million in the Santa Cruz, California-based company, bringing its total investment to $125 million. Joby has raised more than $720 million in funding since it was founded in 2009, most of it from Toyota Motor Corp.

Uber on Monday announced the sale of its self-driving unit to autonomous vehicle startup Aurora in a move it said would accelerate the ride-sharing company’s goal to achieve profitability.

Uber has promised investors to achieve profitability on a basis of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by the end of 2021. During the last quarter, Uber reported a $625 million adjusted EBITDA loss.

The company has said it would focus on its core ride-hailing and food delivery platforms to achieve profitability and implemented stringent cost cutting measures, including large rounds of layoffs.

While losses at Uber’s self-driving, Elevate and other technology programs had slightly narrowed this year, the company still reported a third quarter $104 million adjusted EBITDA loss for the segment.

Elevate began in 2016 and its team until earlier this year promised the launch of flying taxi services in Los Angeles, Dallas and Melbourne in 2023.

Uber and Joby on Tuesday said they would each integrate the other company’s services into their own app to allow customers to book seamless ground and air transportation in the future.

Uber in January announced it had partnered with South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co to develop electric air taxis as part of its Elevate program.

Hyundai did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Source: Reuters)

“We feel we will be ready by end of February 2021. We will be connecting Accra regionally initially to start with and later on, in partnership with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), we plan to start charters to the Caribbean market and to connect the Far East to Ghana,” Vaibhav Doshi,

Chief Executive Officer of Vflyair Airline Co. Limited confirmed to AviationGhana.com

Vflyair Ghana Limited is a Ghanaian registered company that is currently undergoing certification by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to operate scheduled passenger and cargo service.

The company plans to operate two Airbus A320s and one A319 offering scheduled services between Accra and Abidjan/Dakar, Accra to Johannesburg and Cape Town via Libreville, Kinshasa and Luanda.

It also plans to connect Accra to Tunis and Cairo in North Africa.

Vflyair Company Limited based

in Hanoi City, Vietnam, which currently operates cargo flights and offer charter services to major international organisations in Asia, Central and West Africa are expected to provide the aircraft needed for the Ghana operations.

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Best Practices for COVID-19 Market Stimulation

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called on governments to add

market stimulation measures to the support they are giving to keep aviation financially viable.

Such measures, IATA believes, would encourage travel while systematic testing protocols enable a safe re-opening of borders.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have helped airlines survive the crisis with approximately US$173 billion in various forms of financial support.

More support will be needed in the form of financial stimulus. Many of the support packages are running out, but industry losses continue to mount. Airline losses are now forecast to top US$118 billion this year and nearly US$39 billion in 2021. The industry is expected to continue burning through cash at a rate of almost US$7 billion

per month in the first half of 2021.Financial support must come in

ways that do not further inflate debt which has risen by 51.4% in the crisis to US$651 billion. To put this into perspective, total industry revenue in 2021 is expected to be US$459 billion.

“Financially viable airlines will be needed to lead the economic recovery from the depths of the COVID-19 crisis. Government support of $173 billion has helped many survive. With potential to safely re-open borders and revive travel with testing, governments will need to add measures that stimulate demand. Such targeted initiatives will help generate revenues, avoid adding debt to airlines, and immediately generate economic activity across the value chain,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

IATA identified five proven ways that governments can help stimulate the air travel market while avoiding

adding more debt to already highly leveraged airline balance sheets:

Temporary waivers or suspensions of government charges, taxes and fees to airlines and passengers will reduce flight costs and lower travel costs for passengers.

Route subsidies for flights to local/regional destinations to support connectivity for rural communities and business.

Financial incentives in the form of rewards for operating flights, or seats flown, which can support airlines while load factors or yields are too low.

Advance ticket purchases that governments can use for future trips or distribute to the traveling public in the form of vouchers to support travel and tourism.

Passenger travel subsidies in the form of vouchers for passengers or as a percentage cash-back on overall travel costs.

In normal times, aviation supports

more than 87 million jobs and $3.5 trillion in GDP contribution worldwide. But 46 million jobs and $1.8 trillion in economic activity supported by aviation have been put at serious risk by the dramatic fall in travel demand. The potential to re-start travel with testing should be a turning point. And it creates the opportunity for government measures to stimulate demand, taking economic advantage from aviation’s role as an economic catalyst.

“A robust economic recovery needs people to start traveling again. Every job in aviation supports a further 29 jobs, demonstrating the broad impact that re-connecting the world will have. There are many good ideas out there. Any government stands to benefit by including proven stimulus measures into their economic recovery plans. When people travel, economies prosper and grow,” said de Juniac.

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A Greener future begins with a shift to Coal alternatives

As the world economy emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the consumption of coal is

expected to recover from its sharp decline during the pandemic.

Demand for coal remains strong and helps to fuel economic development in emerging markets. Yet many countries, seeking a more sustainable future, have been taking steps to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, especially coal. Obstacles to their efforts have proven difficult to overcome, not least because people who work in the coal industry depend on it for their livelihoods—but the right policy levers can help.

Green investment and technological progress can help to check the rebound in coal use and accelerate a transition to cleaner energy sources as economic activity normalizes. And well-designed policies can help ease the transition for coal miners and others whose livelihoods depend on coal.

A glance at historyCoal is a major contributor to

local pollution and climate change, accounting for 44 percent of global CO2 emissions. When burned to generate heat or electricity, coal is 2.2 times as carbon intense as natural gas—that is, burning coal emits more than twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas to generate the same amount of energy. Coal-fired thermal power plants release sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and mercury into the air and rivers, streams, and lakes. These emissions not only degrade the environment but there is long-established evidence they are hazardous to human health—British government medical reports estimated that 4,000 people died as a direct result of the Great Smog of London in 1952 that was caused by coal combustion and diesel exhaust.

There is a strong relationship between the level of development and coal consumption, with middle-income countries typically being most dependent on coal. During the second industrial revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, advanced economies rapidly increased their dependence on coal. As incomes continued to rise, however, coal was slowly replaced with more efficient, convenient, and less polluting fuels such as oil, nuclear energy, natural gas, and, more recently, renewable energy.

This decline in coal use was

interrupted in the 1970s and then partially reversed by three factors: (1) energy security concerns, (2) growing electrification, and (3) fast economic growth in emerging markets. Increased power needs contributed to a rebound in demand for coal for electricity generation in many advanced economies, which at the same time were turning back to coal to reduce dependence on imported oil. By the turn of this century, coal use was again declining in advanced economies, but this was more than offset by surging demand in emerging markets.

Today, emerging markets account for 76.8 percent of global coal consumption, with China contributing about half. Power generation accounts for 72.8 percent of coal usage, and industrial uses, such as coking coal for steel production, represent another 21.6 percent.

Obstacles to coal phaseout Phaseouts from coal often take

decades. It took the United Kingdom 46 years to reduce coal consumption by 90 percent from its peak in the 1970s. Across a range of countries, coal use declined just 2.3 percent annually during the period 1971–2017. At that rate, it would take 43 years to fully phase out coal, starting from the peak consumption year.

Several factors make it difficult to steer away from coal.

First, the industrial use of coal, concentrated in emerging markets, is hard to replace with other energy sources. Hydrogen-based technologies

offer a pathway to green the production of steel, but incentives are currently weak because of insufficient carbon pricing.

Second, coal power plants are long-lived assets with a minimum design lifespan of 30 to 40 years. Once built, coal plants are here to stay unless there are dramatic changes in the costs of renewables or policy makers intervene.

Third, moving away from coal typically means losses for the domestic mining industry and its workers. In major coal-consumer countries such as China and India, strong domestic mining interests may complicate and delay the phase-out of coal. In the United States, the rapid transition from coal to natural gas led to a decline in coal mine employment, a record number of bankruptcies among coal mining firms, and a sharp decline in coal mining stocks. A similar transition in some coal-producing countries could imperil financial stability, as banks take losses on investments in obsolete mines and power plants—so-called “stranded assets.’’ And the human element often sees a long, proud tradition of miners and others working in the industry, which makes abandoning this way of life difficult.

Feasibility of phaseoutsCertain market conditions and

policy levers can help overcome obstacles to a coal phaseout. Stricter environmental policies, carbon taxes, and affordable energy substitutes are crucial. For example, a carbon pricing scheme helped the United Kingdom reduce its dependence on

coal by 12.4 percentage points from 2013 to 2018. In Spain, government subsidies favoring renewable electricity generation helped reduce coal dependence between 2005 and 2010—even though that reduction was in part driven by temporary factors. In the United States, a more modest decline was driven by market forces as the shale gas revolution pushed down natural gas prices.

Tough questions will need to be asked and answered when considering the policy alternatives supporting a shift away from coal. Coal miners and others who depend on the coal industry for their livelihoods need, and deserve, realistic solutions to the potential disruption they face. Other supportive policies will be needed to ease job transitions, and possibly encourage the development of alternative industries to avoid hollowing out communities and upending families. In the case of emerging markets and low-income countries, the international community can provide financial and technical assistance (e.g., the know-how needed to build grids that work with intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar) and limit financing of new coal plants, at least where alternatives exist. Cleaner alternatives like natural gas can also help bridge the energy transition towards a greener future. Carbon capture and storage technology may be a viable solution to ease the transition away from coal, but it is currently less cost-competitive than other low-carbon energy sources such as solar and wind.

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BioNTech’s new-model RNA-based vaccine has emerged as the leading contender to bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly within the coming year. Pioneered by a Turkish-German couple whose parents immigrated to Germany in the 1960s, the breakthrough’s symbolic importance matches its practical value.

The world took note when the German start-up BioNTech announced its breakthrough in the

development of a new type of vaccine to combat COVID-19. After testing tens of thousands of people, BioNTech’s vaccine has been shown to be  95% effective  in providing protection for those who would otherwise have been infected. The company was the first to apply for emergency use authorization for a coronavirus vaccine in the United States, and it has announced that it will soon take similar steps in Europe.

Anti-viral vaccines are usually made with devitalized viral materials fabricated outside the body, but BioNTech has pursued a new method of injecting genetically modified RNA into the patient. This prompts the patient’s cells to produce a characteristic protein of the relevant SARS-CoV-2 virus themselves, enabling the body’s immune system to build up an effective response before it encounters the real virus.

The great advantage of this approach is that it allows for the production of more than one billion vaccine doses within the space of just a few months. It is also highly safe, because the modified RNA can survive only at a very low temperature, and quickly degrades in the body once it has performed its job. Any subsequent damage to the body is therefore extremely unlikely.

In close cooperation with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, BioNTech’s success augurs a rapid uptake of widespread vaccination in Europe and the United States. Indeed, delivery contracts for millions of doses of the vaccine are already in place. And it is encouraging that the US drug-maker Moderna has also announced quantitatively similar results in its trials, using a closely related process involving a slightly more stable RNA variant.

More broadly, many other companies are advancing the frontier of next-generation RNA-based

vaccines. Among these is CureVac, a company based in the German town of Tübingen, which has invented a new rapid-programming process for RNA that promises to be widely applicable.

Thanks to these new technologies, the world will likely be freed from the scourge of COVID-19 sometime in 2021 or 2022. Once again, we will be able to eat out and go to the theater without worries; private weddings and parties will no longer be cause for concern. The airline and travel industries will quickly return to normal, and the global economy will be revitalized after a long period of lockdown-induced paralysis.

A major difference is that we will emerge with a completely new pharmaceutical industry, one that promises to deliver extremely effective vaccines against numerous other infectious diseases. Moreover, RNA can, in principle, be programmed in such a way as to produce antibodies against specific types of cancer, promising forms of treatment that are far gentler than chemotherapy.

At BioNTech, the pioneers of the new RNA-based approach to drug development are Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a couple specializing in oncology and genetic research. Şahin, who holds a chair in experimental oncology at the University of Mainz,

is one of the world’s top researchers in the study of personalized vaccines for cancer immunotherapy. Both are German citizens born to Turkish immigrants who came to the country decades ago.

Şahin and Türeci are prime examples of the successful integration of immigrants – including those from Turkey – into German society. They managed not only to gain a foothold in Germany but to thrive, thanks to hard work, an entrepreneurial spirit, and strong cultural traditions.

BioNTech’s story shows that successful immigration is about more than welfare magnetism. Managed properly, immigration is a key source of new blood and fresh ideas for an aging society.

It is worth recalling that Germany’s pharmaceutical industry was one of the earliest manufacturers of the contraceptive pill, starting in the 1960s. No other country embraced this method of contraception more comprehensively. As a consequence, however, the German fertility rate had fallen sharply by the early 1970s – six years before Italy experienced a similar decline, ten years before Spain did, and 20 years before Poland did.

Germany has been paying the price for this early pharmaceutical success. Its largest population cohort comprises

people in their mid-50s, who were born just before the pill-induced drop in birthrates. All of the subsequent generational cohorts have steadily shrunk. Under these demographic conditions, stagnation and decline would be inevitable without immigration. In fact, Germany now needs a continuous inflow of migrants just to fill the population gap that its earlier pharmaceutical successes has caused. Fittingly, Germany’s pharmaceutical industry is achieving international acclaim thanks to the innovative work of two children of immigrants who were lured to the country by the demographic vacuum to which the industry itself contributed. Şahin and Türeci are pioneers in an area of genetic research that now promises to give a new breath of life to the pharmaceutical industry, the European economy, and the entire world.

Hans-Werner Sinn, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Munich, is a former president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and serves on the German economy ministry’s Advisory Council. He is the author, most recently, of The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs

HANS-WERNER SINN

Successful immigration and the new German vaccine

AVIATION GHANA DECEMBER 9-10, 20201 0

Francis Annan talks older cinema, racial politics and escape from pretoria

What is a sequestered Francis Annan watching during a global pandemic? “A lot of older cinema,”

he tells me on a recent Friday via video correspondence.  

The man who recently released his highly suspenseful, already critically received debut feature  Escape From Pretoria,  is returning to  masters  as Robert Bresson and Christian Petzold, from whom he is discovering afresh the “elemental attributes” of film.

“On one hand, you want to be consuming a lot of different types of things,” he says, a quick pace and British accent attending his speech. And yet, seeing as that modern art sits within “a larger remit,” one often has to hark back to vintage cinema for the building blocks of the art form, he reckons.

Annan’s career as a filmmaker began at the BBC some 16 years ago where he acquired experience making award-winning short films and directing primetime BBC One drama for British Television. He also has several feature projects in development as director and writer/director. If his name rings a bell to the Ghanaian ear, it is because he’s the grandson of Justice Daniel Francis Annan, a renowned statesman and former Speaker of the Parliament.

Escape From Pretoria,  the political thriller Annan co-wrote and directed, is based on a 1987 memoir by Tim Jenkin, in which Jenkin relates his 1979 escape from Pretoria Central Prison, along with fellow political activists Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris. It follows Jenkin (played by Daniel Radcliffe) and Lee (Daniel Webber); young, white South Africans branded ‘terrorists’ for their association with Nelson Mandela’s banned ANC.

Because of the themes it addresses,  Annan’s film arrives at a particularly momentous time in history during which, sparked by the death of George Floyd, the world is witnessing renewed protests against race-based discrimination. While he welcomes the notion that his film is an important contribution to current discourse on institutionalised racism and an unjust society, Annan is disappointed that history keeps repeating itself.

He admits that the film “could have done more.” There’s some context to this, he explains: Escape From Pretoria wasn’t originally slated to be filmed in Australia (shooting was supposed to have happened in South Africa). Due to budget constraints, however, producers had to look elsewhere, in Adelaide. Again, a lot of the “bigger scenes” had to be trimmed

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to accommodate the new budget. Annan also concedes that there could have been more politics in the film itself. And yet it works, he says, insofar as it conveys the central message of political convictions translating to action.

“Even though they [Jenkin and Lee] were white and middle class and young men who should have gone to do something else, they decided ‘no, no! We do think apartheid is wrong, and we realise that of we just leave the country or do something else, it’s not going to be enough. We need to stay here and fight those guys.

“Therefore, talking is great, but at the end of the day, action is what matters. That’s what the film is about, and that’s why the film works — because they [the film’s lead characters] do something that gets them put to prison, and they have a mind-set which says ‘breaking out is the only violent response because we are prisoners of war.’ And that’s amazing. They didn’t intellectualize it; they said ‘action!’”

Pretoria Central Prison was well known as the “white man’s Robben Island” and housed white political prisoners who would have been on Robben Island but were sent to Pretoria because even within the prison system, apartheid applied. This meant that in telling Jenkin’s story, staying clear of inflexions and fictitious characters as much as possible, Annan had to fall on a predominantly white cast to treat a predominantly black tale. But he justifies the colour of his actors, arguing that the apartheid story presents varied subplots, Jenkins representing just a single tributary. 

“This is the book. We’re making a film about the book. The book goes there so we go there, then that’s what the film is going to look like. If I start trying to shoehorn black African characters in, then we’re doing something else. I wanted to be quite clean with the book, and stick with that.”

Indeed, notes Annan, it’s accurate to say that the campaign to end apartheid was contributed to by a “tapestry” of people from plural backgrounds. Escape From Pretoria  is just one aspect of a multifaceted story.

For many Ghanaian and West African citizens, though the concept of discrimination is not unfamiliar, the sort that is tied to a person’s race is not common. His tribe, yes, but not the complexion of his skin. What then drew Annan to the story? What is the film’s specific intention for the country from where its director gets his surname? 

As a child, Annan remembers hearing stories from his grandfather and mum. The older Francis Annan travelled a lot on behalf of Ghana and would return with fascinating stories from all over the world. Even if Ghana wasn’t directly affected by

apartheid, “there was this kind of West African voyeurism with what was going on in South Africa,” little Annan observed, a characteristic he likens to how Central Asians looked at Vietnam or Cambodia or how Europeans looked at Eat and West Berlin. Or Czechoslovakia breaking up or the Soviet Union breaking up. “It’s still part of the same continent, but feels so alien.” 

“It was kind of interpretation that I felt by West Africans with regards to South Africa, and so I always remember that..”

It was even more fascinating for Annan to discover that not only was the story of apartheid more complex, “but [with] the whites who may be seen as majority aggressors, it wasn’t that clean-cut either.”

“There were many whites of conviction who would stop paying tax or leave the country saying ‘I don’t want to be part of this rubbish anymore,’ or there was a party called the Progressive Party which some people have criticised for being ineffective — but they set it up to be some kind of check and balance against apartheid. Or, like the two characters in this film, there were many French, white South African, or English people who came to South Africa to join forces with the ANC, whose base was actually in London, and so it was a much more international anti-apartheid affair than I knew. I just thought it was whites on one side and Africans on the other. 

It was not: There was the Black Sach Movement, a non-violent liberal group comprising African, white and Asian women who fought against apartheid in their own way, some going to prison, others losing their jobs among other things. There were Asians who registered their displeasure by employing methods as refusing to pay tax and holding rallies, recounts Annan.

Upon reading Jenkin’s story, Annan felt a shift in his head. “That’s interesting,” he thought. “ And I’m hoping that something of that kind of shift can happen in a lot of West Africans, Ghanaians and just Africans in general.”

On what film — the storytelling medium he specialises in — can achieve that a book can’t and vice versa, Annan says: “A film has visuals. With a single look, a close-up shot, it can say ten pages about how a man was jealous and filled with rage because another man got a job or promotion that he didn’t get.”

That’s not all: There’s music to evoke emotion; there’s transition of time (“a cut can move from one continent to another or span a hundred years in a jump cut.”) in that way, to his mind, film is “unique and has potentially more tricks at its disposal, but the necessity for it to be pointing to one thing — I think — is freeing in a novel.”

I ask how he went about distilling the different emotions present in the story

to achieve such a pulsating atmosphere in the film. “Things like fear, trepidation and courage are often expressed in action rather than talking about it,” he replies.

“You can [talk about them], but when a man is in the trenches, clutching his gun, and trembling with fear, and the sergeant says ‘ok, everybody up and over!’, many don’t, but the ones who say, ‘look, I’m scared, but I’m going to do it anyway, that’s courage. 

“And so, if I could find actions that illustrated that even though they [characters in the film] don’t have a full plan; even though there’s division amongst the ranks as to what the best method of attack is: stay in prison and endure an unjust sentence or escape — even though there are those discrepancies, nonetheless, they act[…] To act and to rebel against the unjust regime is, in itself, winning; you’re winning if you don’t sit there and accept their unjust sentence. And so I try to make it as tense as possible because I want you to feel that you’re on that corridor with them, and the tension illustrates what’s at stake, and what’s at stake shows you how brave they were to do it anyway.”

 As a filmmaker, does Annan see an end in sight regarding racial unrest, or are we, twenty yeas on, to expect new films to tackle issues thus?

Annan is optimistic, but cautiously so. Things will improve, but more films will be made twenty years on. 

“When slavery happened, nobody realised that it was a PR campaign. It was a marketing campaign for the African, their place in the world, their position, their appearance, and what they mean in the world.”

  Hundreds of years later, “the mental narrative of global capitalisation,” has yet to be addressed, he notes. “Blacks served a role in the creation, advancement, and prosperity of America which European-Americans are not willing to accord the African-American who picked the cotton, picked the corn, and cut the sugarcane and built the antebellum houses and so on.”

The remedy: retribution. “There’s an element of the American

psyche which is refusing to look back at that time and say not only are we sorry, but America isn’t America without that labour.”

He continues: “that racist base in America and other parts of the world is justified and emboldened by being able to replace the real narrative with another version of events, which is what is perpetuating the racism.”

Maybe in several generations; as the truth expands, real chance will happen, he feels. Otherwise, the vicious cycle will continue, new films and hashtags emerging with a new wave of protests.

BY GABRIEL MYERS HANSEN