Ghanaian filmmaker and writer, Shirley Frimpong
Renowned Ghanaian filmmaker and writer Shirley Frimpong Manso has expressed concern over the unwillingness of young Ghanaians to embrace mentorship and genuinely commit to learning within the film industry.
Speaking in an interview with Doreen Avio on Hitz FM on June 18, 2025, Shirley emphasised that while she is open and eager to mentor the next generation, many aspiring creatives may not be prepared to put in the necessary work.
“I think the opportunities all around us and if the young and upcoming, those coming from school, those wanting mentorship you know wanting to learn and stuff. it’s all around us as long as you’re not just looking to come in three weeks and decide that she wants to come and take your job, she wants to be a super star and before you know it they’re posting this and stuff like that and if you really want to learn, I’ve helped couple of people” she said.
She continued, “One of the guys that I work with, he came from the School of Performing Arts. I met him at Afrif. This would be about 10 years ago. He came to me and he said, I’m such an admirer of your work and stuff like that, from School of Performing Arts, this and this is what I do. I have a tracking of our conversation. And I said, come to my office. He came around the office. I think for several weeks I wasn’t even in but he’s stuck by it. I worked with him for 10 years. He has been my co-writer on a lot of the stuff that we’ve done. This is a young guy I didn’t know him from anywhere”.
Shirley shared a powerful example of mentorship in action, recounting the story of a young man she met at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) nearly a decade ago.
“Somebody like Jocelyn, I brought her on as an actor. I’m actually mentoring her on producing. I’ve even told her that if she wanted to direct and stuff like that. There’s so many people I’ve said, come on set, just come and sit there” she stated.
She added, “You want to learn how to direct, you want to learn how to produce and stuff. When it even comes to people who have done costuming on my set, these are people that we’ve taken from nowhere that we’ve actually moulded. I am all about support. I’m all about mentoring. But are people ready to learn? Be able to put their head in there and actually do the job? That’s where the problem is”.
FG/EB
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