AMIP News: New Documentary “OBAMA IN GHANA: The Untold Story” Premieres at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, DC

Close to 150 people defied warnings of inclement weather on Tuesday January 11 to attend the premiere of Tony Regusters' documentary film "Obama In Ghana: The Untold Story" at the chancery of the embassy of Ghana in Washington, DC. Ghana's ambassador to the United States H.E. Daniel Ohene Agyekum commended Division Twelve media and her partners for producing the film and stressed its relevance for the entire African continent rather than just Ghana.

The event was co-sponsored by The Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, Division Twelve Media, The African Union Diaspora African Forum and the African Communications Agency.

Below is a press release and a photo report about the film and event.

FOR IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
UNTOLD STORIES

When President Barack Obama and the First Family made their historic sojourn to the Republic of Ghana in July of 2009, an occasion marking the first-ever visit by a Black American president to Black Africa, the international media descended on Ghana like a biblical horde of locust. Many of those journalists and television crews were shocked to discover that their press credentials had either been curtailed or their access to the American president greatly minimized.

Thus, major components of the story focusing on the impact of President Obama’s historic visit to that Sub-Saharan African nation were missed by global audiences.
Veteran Washington metropolitan area broadcast media professional, Tony Regusters, and his partners, Dr. Keith Hunter, a Washington-based physician with a deep love of Black history and an entrepreneur’s sense of adventure - and Ambassador Dr. Erieka F. Bennett, founder of the Ghana-based Diaspora African Forum, joined together to produce a documentary focusing on President Obama’s and the First Family’s incredible experience in Ghana.

“President Obama and First Family were only in Ghana for a day and a half,” said filmmaker, Tony Regusters, “but in that short time, the centuries between the day the first West African was kidnapped and sold into slavery and the day the first Black President of the United States and his family returned to Africa, was compressed in an amazing and miraculous experience of spiritual and psychological catharsis!”

The film, a video production called “OBAMA IN GHANA: The Untold Story” details the preparations, the politics and the pageantry of the Obama state visit, including speeches made not only by President Obama to Ghana’s Parliament, but remarks made by Ghana’s President John Atta Mills. Additional interviews include comments by Ghana’s former presidents, John Kufour and Flight Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.
“The film accomplishes everything we wanted it to,” says Dr. Erieka Bennett, an executive producer of the film and founder of the Diaspora African Forum, a mission at Accra’s W.E.B DuBois Center that holds diplomatic status granted by the Republic of Ghana. “It brings the incredible history of Africans in the Diaspora full circle and documents a moment in history that will never come again: the first visit by the first Black American President to a Black African nation.”

The film will have a one-night-only gala screening to benefit cultural projects of Washington, DC’s Ubuntu Village, which builds cultural bridges between Africa and the US, support programs of the Diaspora African Forum, and contribute funds toward the construction of a new K-8 school being built there by Xernona Clayton, a legendary broadcast executive at CNN.

“There are so many ‘untold stories’ in the world,” notes Dr. Keith Hunter, also one of the film’s executive producers. “Our hope is that, with the success of this film, we’re in a position to begin to tell at least more than a few of those stories, before they are lost forever to time and memory…”

A former advertising salesman at Essence Magazine, TV news writer/producer for CNN’s Washington, DC bureau and CNN International in Africa, and at Washington, DC’s venerable WUSA-TV9 News, Tony Regusters is also the co-creator (with former BET COO Sheila Johnson) of Black Entertainment Television’s award-winning “Teen Summit” program, Tony Regusters brings tremendous professional expertise and creativity to this first ‘untold stories’ project. “I’ve done just about everything you can do in media and communications, but this is my first film - and it represents a kind of coming full circle for me, since filmmaking is what I majored in as a communications student in college back in the 70’s. I guess if you keep your eyes on the prize, stay determined and true to what’s really in your heart, you can actually do anything that you can mentally see yourself doing. It’s a question of your ability, I think, to hold onto a vision. Ultimately, for me, this film is a tribute to the ancestors…”

For additional information about the “OBAMA IN GHANA: The Untold Story” documentary -or to schedule an interview with Tony Regusters, contact film publicist Tracy Knighton via email at rrctknighton@yahoo.com – or by phone at (240) 671-5979.

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