Stonebwoy is a bonafide Ashaiman boy who made it out of the hood and is now a globally recognised star.
So he always feels excited whenever someone else charts a similar territory, or so his latest Facebook post tells us. Attah Abraham is the 14 year old Ghanaian street vendor who has become a worldwide sensation overnight for starring with Idris Elba in ‘Beasts of No Nation’ and winning an award for it.
The life of a young street vendor from Ghana has changed for good or let’s say, is about to take a shocking good turn.
Without having ever stepped a foot in any acting classroom or haven’t even dreamt of ever becoming an actor, Attah Abraham who was picked from the streets of Ghana during the shooting of Netflix’s soon to be released movie “Beasts of No Nation“, has won the prestigious Marcello Mastroianni’s Best Young Actor award at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, the world’s oldest film festival.
It surely was a risky business to fly into Ghana and pick a street vendor to become your lead actor—you can say director Cary Fukunaga is crazy for doing this but his edge for risk has started paying off.
In April this year, producer James Schamus and director Cary Fukunaga at the Tribeca Film Festival spoke about how their latest film-Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba’s teenage lead actor was randomly picked from the streets of Ghana.
Cary Fukunaga said; “the lead in ‘Beasts of No Nation’ was essentially a street vendor before we shot the film. [He had] zero film experience, little education…but he became a somewhat professional actor, which was astounding to watch.”
Fukunaga added that, “his unlikely star’s name is Abraham Attah, and he is a 14-year-old who plays an 11-year-old child soldier in the film. Abraham’s character joins a militant group from an unnamed West African country that is led by a brutal warlord, played by Idris Elba (“Luther”)” reported the BusinessInsider.
Some will call it talent and others may call it the work of God—whatever it is, Attah Abraham’s future has new shinning stars—the 14 year old Ghanaian street vendor with no hope of a better tomorrow has now become an inspiration to even already ‘established’ Ghanaian actors.
Though it was a street pick, Abraham initially had to fight for the role. Fukunaga mentioned that it was an interesting casting process;
“We gathered a bunch of kids who had potential, about 30 of them, and we did this theater workshop and tried scenes that were in the script, and we would improvise. See if these kids could play a variety of emotions and actions that take place in the story. And the kids are fast learners, they quickly understood that the better they did the longer they stayed [in the running for the role].”
Even when he scored the role, Abraham took charge of affairs and made shocking progress during the shooting. Touching on the amazing progression of Abraham during the difficult scenes of filming, director-Fukunaga told the film festival audience at the time that;
