Lydia Forson proved herself more than just an actress in this Christmas comedy she co-wrote. Breaking the walls between the local language (Twi) and English, Lydia merges the two to help start ringing the bells for a joyful, laughter-filled Christmas!
Lydia says most assertively that, “I did Creative Writing at Legon. Unfortunately, most people don’t know that part of me. I love to write.”
Starring Desmond Elliot, Adjetey Annang, Selanu, Katawere and Lydia Forson, this movie exploits a very crazy form of humour but leave its audience with quite a strong message for the Chrismas Season. Nana Yaa Boateng (Lydia Forson) has just arrived from the United States of America, to attend her dead uncle’s funeral (Katawere) and, much more importantly to her, to hear the reading of his will. Her brother Kwesi, who lives in Ghana, goes to meet her at the airport to bring her home and the drama begins. Nana Yaa most definitely wants to make her “American” presence felt and adopts a seriously horrible LAFA accent, and is pumped with airs and graces. However, behind the masquerade of the successful been-to, Nana Yaa Boateng (or Naya Boat-eng as she preferred to be called!) had quite a few, if not as serious as skeletons, fish bones in her closet. She is in fact, not the celebrity PR she claims to be but a cleaner in New York. But none of her family can know that!
Tunde, played by Desmond Elliot, is an old friend of the family who has also just arrived from the UK. He arrives to make a show of his wealth, to help in the funeral of his uncle, as well as to woo Naya. His accent simply reeks of a bogus accent, ending all his sentences with “mate”. His masquerade is to hide his poverty and incessant borrowing abilities. He borrows from car to clothes from a rich friend of his to take Naya on a date. Pretty hilarious, especially when he berates Naya for pretending to be who she is not.
Kwesi, Naya’s brother played by Selanu, is very down-to-earth and appreciative of his bankus and taxis. He definitely does not feel pressured to shun his Ghanaianisms, though his sister and their family friend do. However, a huge scam has been played on Kwesi by his old Uncle and his Uncle’s lawyer (adjetey Annang).
His uncle pretends to die with the help of the lawyer, Nicholas, to be able to retrieve money from his insurance. Unknown to him, his lawyer has a plan B: to kill him and steal the insurance money.
The comedy unearths the awkward moments when the Twi-speaking side of the family meets with the English side, and no one can understand each other! Laughter would just rip through your sides as they stumbled through what was supposed to be a family meeting. One also gets the common Ghanaian occurrence where a distant member of the family always comes around, pretending to care and worry about your welfare, in order to get some ‘malt’ when he or she is leaving. Scenes of typical Ghanaian Christmases were interspersed between the drama: children playing with ‘knockouts’ (fireworks), Churches holding huge Christmas programs where everyone is dressed in their Sunday best, an actual masquerade where men on stilts did the azonto dressed in the Christmas colours. The movie ends with a lovely scene where the family is joined together at the dining table, eating a delicious Christmas meal, spiced with laughter and love.
Important lessons:
Ø Be yourself
Ø Christmas is a time for family reunion, an important fact that seems to be fading away in the current fast-paced world.
Masquerades is produced by Zedec Entertainment in association with rLG communications and directed by Xavier Arijs.
"Masquerades" would be premiering on the 16th of December at the Silverbird Cinema.
"Masquerades" would be premiering on the 16th of December at the Silverbird Cinema.
“For me, Christmas was about family, about sitting down together, eating and watching a good movie. Just really bonding.” – Lydia Forson
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