CHRIS-VINCENT Writes: Beyond the Shameful MOCKING | The Abraham Attah’s Awe-Inspiring Story So Far…

I’ve held keen interest in Abraham Attah’s success journey and I was perhaps the first Ghanaian to write an article on him when he won his first highly regarded award at the Venice Film Festival—for the reason that, I found his story inspiring and still do, and also because I follow the various film festivals around the world as a Film Critic.
Even before the many other awards and media mentions came through, I noted his talent and acting excellence in my review of Netflix’s ‘Beasts of No Nation’ the very day it was released. In my review titled-‘Beasts of No Nation’ Review: Captivating Art Out of the Brutalities of War, I wrote;

Nextflix took a huge risk with this production and its direct release on its platform—which resulted in a boycott from 4 US major cinema chains but the brilliance achieved by Cary Fukunaga and the superb performance from Ghana’s first time actor-Abraham Attah as well as Idris Elba’s master play as Commandant make it a commendable risk.

Someone had the dangling balls to take the risk by giving a platform to a 14 year old Ghanaian (now 15) with no acting background and little education on such a huge budget movie—with a lot at stake.
During all the pre-release conversations and festival appearances, the director of the film-Cary Fukunaga made Abraham Attah the pivot of his interviews; spoke beautifully about his brilliance and talent—and even told the world they’ve paid to put him in a boarding school so he can get the good education he deserves.
“There’s a reality that these kids will probably not have a career as an actor, so this experience is a one-time experience. For Abraham, he’s only 14 so we had to get him up to speed in school, so right now we put him into boarding school back in Ghana so he can get up to normal 14 year old academics. By nature of us crossing into these people’s lives you have some responsibility there to make their lives better, but at the same time you’re not adopting a child, by any means,” Cary Fukunaga said in an interview.

Beside the many mentions by the director of ‘Beasts of No Nation’, Abraham Attah has found his own voice on many of the biggest international media platforms. He has been interviewed by almost every media house that matters.
The CNN, BBC, Mashable, NYTimes, MailOnline, Aljazeera, Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair, WashingtonPost and almost every media outlet have celebrated his story, his brilliance, his achievements and have given him the due recognition.
In Ghana, he has been duly noted; beyond the social media praises, the Ghana Movie Awards awarded him with last year’s Discovery of the Year and the Best Actor in A Lead Role awards.
Abraham has gone ahead to win an award at the 2015 Critic’s Choice Awards, Best Male Award at Independent Spirit Award, Gold Derby Film Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, Awards Circuit Community Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role and has several other awards’ nominations to his credit.
In-between the awards and media conversations about Abraham Attah sits a new movie role. Abraham Attah has been cast in the upcoming movie ‘The Modern Ocean’. Production starts this year, and director Shane Carruth has assembled a heavyweight cast for the marine flick. Aside Attah, the movie stars Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Anne Hathaway (Interstellar)- as well as Chloe Grace, Asa Butterfield and Tom Holland.

So far, it has been an inspiration story; great achievements by a young boy from Ashaiman in Ghana, who could not have even imagined any of these in his wildest dream. Perhaps, he did not even have a passport—but now, he has strong foreign friends, reputation, contacts and recognition. And he has visited some of the best cities of the world in less than a year.
If he was a little fortunate like some of us, he must have watched a few of Sylvester Stallon’s First Blood movies while growing up—but his ‘grace’ has taken him a step further. Now he parties and sits side by side with John Rambo and a tall list of some of the most respected people in the world that most of us only see in the news or in films.
And then came the Oscars…
I have never been to the Oscars and as a Film Critic, that’s something I would love to see from a close distance. The nearest to Oscars event I attend is the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, the biggest Film Festival in the world where I get to see some of the biggest film stars in the world.
Even at Cannes, a Film Critic like me wouldn’t get the opportunity to sit next to any of them—usually, you only see them close at the press conferences or from a distant on the red carpet and if you are lucky, you may bump into them while on a frolic of your own just like I once unexpectedly turned around to see Quentin Tarantino standing next to me.
At Cannes, many people travel from different countries without accreditation to just come and stand far away in rains so they can get a glimpse of these movie stars—people hold placards and beg for tickets just to be able to go and see some of the unreleased movies, hoping to catch a peep of the stars who would attend the showings.

But Abraham Attah did not do any of these; he was invited to attend the most important award ceremony in the world of Entertainment-the Academy Awards—and not just that, to also present an award on the big stage. This is something no Ghanaian has ever done.
He took this serious and did what was expected of him—and even more. The Beasts of No Nation star walked the 88th annual Academy Awards red carpet in his TOMS and proudly with a good cause behind it.
GhanaCelebrities.Com wrote that; “Since the profit shoe brand donates a pair of shoes to children in need for every pair sold, Abraham Attah entered into an agreement with them, so that the shoe brand will donate 10,000 pairs of shoes to the people of Ghana—in return for him wearing the brand to the most important award show in the world, he told E! correspondent Ryan Seacrest.
That’s clever—and heart touching.”
As a 15 year old child, he fumbled a bit during his Oscar’s speech—who wouldn’t? With almost everyone who matters in the industry looking at you with their ‘blue eyes’ and the entire world literally and metaphorically gazing at you, that’s the least anyone should have noticed and picked on.
After the Oscars, photos of Abraham Attah ‘kicking it real’ with some of the biggest stars of our time—ranging from Morgan Freeman to Sylvester Stallone surfaced online. That was awe-inspiring and a dream-like.

If I had just gotten up from a long sleep to see these photos online, I would have reasonably credited Nana Aba Anamoah for an excellent photoshop work done.
The post Oscar international media coverage on Abraham Attah has been nothing less of his accomplishments. He has been honored, praised and respectfully noted.
The US Embassy in Ghana has saluted Abraham. “Great weekend for Ghana’s Abraham Attah! He picked up the Best Male Lead award at Film Independent’s 2016 Spirit Awards for his role in Beasts of No Nation and presented an Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards,” the Embassy wrote.

The President of Ghana-John Dramani Mahama has also celebrated Abraham’s achievements with a tweet. Late Monday night, the President congratulated Abraham Attah for raising high the flag of Ghana.
Yet, despite young Abraham Attah’s globe-trotting the past few weeks, notching up awards and running in top circles, some local champions on radio, Lexis Bill of JOY FM, Jay Foley of LIVE FM and MzGee ridiculed the young Ghanaian-Hollywood actor’s Oscar’s speech because he fumbled and somewhat got his words and sentences wrong.
It’s insane, perhaps, grossly pathetic and unpardonable that grown-up Ghanaians will do this to a young achieving boy from their own country—and several social media users have stated that Abeiku Santana also mocked him on the same grounds on OKAY FM.

Some friends of these radio presenters have tried to defend this shocking conducts of the radio presenters, by saying, they just made fun of the way he spoke at the Oscars to inject some sort of humor into their radio shows.
Of course, it’s commonsense for grown ups to do this to a young boy—mimic his difference, mistake and perhaps insecurity this way live on radio.
Earlier yesterday, GhanaCelebrities.Com reported on actress-Yvonne Okoro confessing on instagram that, Abraham Attah is living her dreams and that of all her colleagues. They’ve all been wishing for this their entire career and the boy from no where, with little education and absolutely no background in movies just got it—and these people found humour in mocking him on radio.
The mocking is sad but it doesn’t make Abraham Attah’s story any less inspiring—if anything at all, it adds to the challenges he has overcome.