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¶ W — MEDIA · 2025

Chale Wote Festival

An Official Film for the Chale Wote Street Art Festival

Media 2025
Challenge
TODO: Chale Wote is the largest street art festival in West Africa, held annually in the James Town neighbourhood of Accra. The 2025 edition needed an official documentary film that could function simultaneously as a cultural record, a festival trailer and a piece of creative work capable of standing on its own at international film festivals. The brief: capture the energy of James Town in August without aestheticising poverty, and make something Ghanaians are proud to share.
Process
01

Pre-production

TODO: Six weeks of location scouts through James Town with the festival curators. We built a shot-list around seven artist portraits and four community sequences, then scheduled the three-day shoot around the festival programme. A local fixer-researcher joined the crew to navigate access and translation.

02

Production

TODO: Shot over three consecutive days on ARRI ALEXA Mini LF with vintage Leica glass for the portraiture sequences and a DJI Ronin RS3 Pro for crowd movement. All audio recorded double-system — Lectrosonics wireless lapel for interviews, a Sennheiser MKH 416 for ambience. Zero lighting on exteriors; internal bounce cards only.

03

Post-production

TODO: Offline edit in DaVinci Resolve 18.6; online at 4K DCI. Colour grade built around the golden-hour palette of James Town — high contrast, rich earth tones, skin rendered without the "Instagram filter" warmth common in festival films. Original score composed and recorded by an Accra-based quartet.

04

Delivery

TODO: Delivered a 22-minute documentary, a four-minute festival trailer, and 12 two-minute portrait shorts for social media. All assets delivered in DCP, ProRes 4444 and H.264 web-optimised formats.

Outcome

TODO: The documentary premiered at the festival closing event to an audience of 1 200 and was screened at two international film festivals in the following three months. The festival trailer reached 2.1 million views on YouTube within 30 days of upload. The portrait shorts were picked up by three media publications as editorial content.

Results
2.1 M
Trailer views (30 days)
3
Festival screenings
Gallery
Still frame from the Chale Wote documentary showing a muralist at work in James Town Behind-the-scenes photograph of the film crew with ARRI ALEXA Mini LF Colour grade reference frame from the finished documentary
Credits
Director
NxtCre8tives
Director of Photography
NxtCre8tives
Editor
NxtCre8tives
Original Score
NxtCre8tives

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