Shirley Frimpong-Manso is a Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

ian film director, writer, and producer. Frimpong-Manso is a founder and CEO of the film, television, and advertising production company Sparrow Productions. Frimpong-Manso "seeks to raise the standard of film production in Ghana and Africa by telling progressive African stories as seen through the eyes of Africans." She won ‘Best Director’ at the African Movie Academy Awards 2010.

Biography

Frimpong-Manso ancestry is from the Eastern region of Ghana, from Kwahu Pepease (her father's side) and Akropong-Akuapim (her mother's side). She says that as a child she organized plays, as "[i]t just felt like a lot more fun than playing with sand and dolls." She graduated in 2000 from the National Film and Television Institute

National Film and Television Institute

The National Film and Television Institute was established in 1978 by the Government of Ghana as a public Institution of Higher Education in Film and Television Production. Since its inception in 1978, NAFTI has offered professional and academic education in film and television education, in...

 of Ghana and worked as a presenter at Radio Gold, a private station in Accra. Frimpong-Manso started Sparrow Productions in 2003.

Works

With producer and actress Juliet Asante, Frimpong-Manso helped produce the TV show “Heart to Heart” for two years shortly after school.
She has also produced:

• Different Shades of Blue- A television serial about five university girls who share a dormitory in a university hostel.
• Personalities Kitchen- A cooking program that hosts two personalities and challenges them to a rice meal of their choice.
• The Miss Ghana Pageant- She produced two semifinalists at the Miss World event within five years during her time.

Filmography

Frimpong-Manso's films are:

• The Perfect Picture: the story of the lives and loves of several Ghanaian women friends, focusing on marriage and societal norms of Ghana that are not represented in Western film. Frimpong-Manso won Best Director for The Perfect Picture at the 2010 African Movie Academy Awards
  6th African Movie Academy Awards
  The 6th African Movie Academy Awards ceremony was held on 10 April 2010 at the Gloryland Cultural Center in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria, to honor the best African films of 2009. The nominees were announced on 6 March 2010 at the Mensvic Grand Hotel in Accra, Ghana at an event that was attended...
  
  , where her films garnered a total of four awards.
• A Sting in a Tale: "A cautionary tale about two Ghanaian men scrabbling to find jobs." It won an Audience Favorite award at the 2010 Pan African Film & Arts Festival
• Life and Living It
• Scorned
• Check Mate
• Six Hours to Christmas: A tale of a creative director whose life was overturned when he was tempted to stray on Christmas Eve.
• Adams Apples: a 10 part serial released during one year starting in April 2011. It follows the lives of four women (a mother and three adult children) in modern Ghana.

Awards

• African Movie Academy Awards 2010- Best Director of the Year
• African Movie Academy Awards 2010- A Sting In A Tale won the Best Sound Track award
• 18th Annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival- A Sting In A Tale took home the award for Audience Favorite-Narrative Feature

See also

• Sparrow Productions
• Sparrow Productions Facebook Page
• BBC World Service interview, 24 Dec 2010.