‘We are preserving a tradition’: how Ghana’s sensationalist film posters became collectible art

# ‘We are preserving a tradition’: how Ghana’s sensationalist film posters became collectible art

**ACCRA** — On a dusty porch in the coastal suburb of Teshie, east of Ghana’s capital, a master artist known as Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and carefully applied it to a flour sack stretched across a wooden frame. The canvas was not destined for a gallery — at least not yet. It was a hand-painted movie poster for Disney’s *The Little Mermaid*, but the scene depicted bore little resemblance to the animated classic. A man brandished a bloodied knife; a skull loomed in the background. “We add more to make people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu. “The people want action. They want drama.”

For decades, Ghana’s sensationalist film posters — wildly imaginative, often violent reinterpretations of Hollywood, Bollywood, and Chinese blockbusters — have drawn moviegoers to small, open-air cinemas known as “video centres.” Now, these hand-painted works are being rediscovered by international collectors and museums, transforming a once-fringe craft into a sought-after genre of contemporary African art.

The golden age of Ghanaian cinema posters

At the height of Ghana’s video boom in the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds of artists like Heavy J produced posters for films ranging from *Rambo* to *The Terminator* to *Bruce Lee* classics. The posters were rarely faithful to the source material. Instead, artists created exaggerated, often lurid scenes designed to lure customers through the doors. “We were not trying to show what the movie was about,” explained Francis Annan, a 68-year-old former poster artist who now runs a small studio in Nima, a bustling neighbourhood in Accra. “We were trying to sell tickets. If the poster showed a man fighting a crocodile, even if there was no crocodile in the film, people would come.”

This creative liberty sometimes backfired. Annan recalled an incident in the mid-1990s when a poster for a romantic comedy — featuring a man holding a severed head — prompted a violent confrontation. “The audience was angry. They threw stones at the cinema. They said we had cheated them,” he said. “But the owner told us: ‘Keep doing it. The people are talking. That’s good for business.’”

From street corners to auction houses

Today, original Ghanaian film posters command prices of $500 to $5,000 in galleries in London, New York, and Paris. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York included several in a 2022 exhibition on global poster art. “These works are a form of folk surrealism,” said Dr. Akua Owusu-Nkrumah, a curator at the Ghana National Museum and an expert in African visual culture. “They capture a moment when local artists were completely free to reinterpret global pop culture through a Ghanaian lens. That authenticity is what collectors are now desperate to preserve.”

The market has grown rapidly. According to data from the African Art Market Report, sales of Ghanaian film posters at international auctions rose 340% between 2020 and 2025, with the highest prices going to works from the 1980s featuring well-known actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan. However, the supply of original posters is dwindling. Many were discarded or painted over when video centres closed in the early 2000s, as VHS tapes gave way to DVDs and digital streaming.

A new generation of collectors

Heavy J, now 52, is one of a handful of artists still producing hand-painted posters. He works primarily on commission from collectors in Europe and the United States. “I used to paint 10 posters a week for cinemas. Now I paint one or two a month for people who want to hang them on their walls,” he said. “But I am happy. We are preserving a tradition.”

The trend has also sparked a revival among younger Ghanaian artists. In Accra’s Chale Wote Street Art Festival, held annually in the historic Jamestown district, several emerging painters now incorporate the bold colours and exaggerated violence of classic film posters into their own works. “It’s a direct visual language,” said Kofi Baako, a 29-year-old artist who exhibited a series of reimagined posters at the festival in 2025. “It speaks to people who grew up seeing these images on every street corner. It’s our pop art.”

Looking forward: preservation and commercialization

The Ghanaian government has taken notice. In March 2026, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture announced a partnership with the British Museum to digitize and catalogue more than 2,000 surviving posters from the 1980s and 1990s. “This is not just about art. It’s about documenting a unique chapter of Ghanaian cinema history,” said Minister Fatima Nkansah in a statement.

Yet challenges remain. Many original posters are fragile — painted on flour sacks, cement bags, or recycled cardboard. A lack of climate-controlled storage facilities in Accra has led to rapid deterioration. “We are losing these works faster than we can preserve them,” said Dr. Owusu-Nkrumah. “Every year, another batch crumbles into dust. We need international support to save what is left.”

Analysis: A cultural bridge between past and future

The rise of Ghana’s film posters as collectible art reflects a broader global appetite for vernacular, outsider, and non-Western visual traditions. Unlike the polished, corporate movie posters of Hollywood, these hand-painted works are raw, unfiltered, and deeply local — a testament to the ingenuity of artists working with limited resources and total creative freedom. As the market matures, the challenge for Ghana will be to balance commercial interest with cultural preservation. If successful, these posters could become one of Africa’s most distinctive contributions to 21st-century pop art. For now, Heavy J continues to paint on his porch in Teshie, adding blood, skulls, and crocodiles to posters for films that never had them — a tradition he hopes will outlast the critics, and the collectors, who have finally come calling.