Ghanaian-American filmmaker Amartei Armar took to Instagram to mark a landmark achievement for his debut feature Ego Reach We All (Our Time Will Come) after the film secured two major awards at the 79th Locarno Film Festival. In a concise post featuring mountain and leopard emojis alongside two trophies, Armar tagged lead actor Idrissu Tontie Jr. and the festival, adding the Swiss and Ghanaian flags.
The message, posted shortly after the awards ceremony on 15 August 2026, captures the personal pride behind a professional breakthrough. Ego Reach We All won the Pardo for Change, a CHF 20,000 prize awarded to the director, while Tontie received the Pardo for Best Performance in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present) competition.
As part of the recognition, the film’s producers were also inducted into Locarno’s Leopard Club. The dual win came from a lineup of 233 films and 103 world premieres selected by artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, and elevates both the film and Ghanaian cinema on one of Europe’s most respected festival platforms.
The festival’s top honour, the Pardo d’oro and its CHF 75,000 prize, went to Romanian director Florin Șerban’s You Don’t Belong Here, underscores that Armar’s win came from a separate, thematically focused jury rather than the main competition.
Written and directed by Armar and produced by Yemoh Ike for AKA Entertainment, the 105-minute drama is a Ghana-France-Saudi Arabia co-production. It follows two orphans, Owusu (Tontie) and Adobea, as they travel through the Ghanaian countryside seeking their last legitimate parent in the hope of reclaiming their identities. In Accra they encounter the Jackals, a group of young people surviving through lock-picking and theft, which radically alters their quest.
Spoken in Twi, Ga and Pidgin, the film was shot entirely in Ghana with a largely local crew before completing post-production in France. The full principal cast includes Idrissu Tontie, Dorothy Adobea Tandoh, Emmanuel Wilberforce, Barbara Yong Jin, Emmanuel Owusu Ofori, O’Bryan Kwame Enyan, Gabriel Narh Addo, Nelly Bilson and Kwame Brenya.
Armar’s path to this moment has been deliberate. Born in 1991 to a Ghanaian father and American mother, he studied film production at the University of British Columbia before settling in Ghana. His short film Tsutsue (2022) became the first Ghanaian title to compete in the official short film selection at Cannes. Ego Reach We All began life under a different name, Vagabonds, whose 2018 short version won at the Montreal World Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying event, and later secured a US$100,000 production award at the Red Sea Souk in 2022, opening the door to Saudi co-production support.
Armar has described the project as semi-autobiographical, rooted in questions of cultural identity and belonging after years of moving between countries.
The feature’s development ran through several respected international labs. Armar was selected for the Heyazah Screening Lab in Doha to sharpen the film’s artistic direction, while producer Yemoh Ike advanced the project through the 2023 EAVE Producers Program under a CNC scholarship spanning Luxembourg, Austria and the Netherlands.
The film was later chosen for the 2025 Atlas Workshop in Marrakesh, further building its standing within global development circles ahead of its Locarno premiere.
Principal photography began with only partial financing secured, a decision Armar has said allowed the team to capture authentic stories on the ground. Support later came from the Red Sea Fund, Fonds Image de la Francophonie and other partners, with French co-producer Sébastien Hussenot of La Luna Productions and Canal+ International involved.
Cinematographer John Kwame Markin, editor Marie-Pierre Frappier, and composers Amine Bouhafa and Kweku Sackey (K.O.G.) contributed to the film’s distinctive visual and sonic identity.
Public Reaction
Critical response at Locarno has been positive, with coverage highlighting the film’s emotional intelligence, atmospheric cinematography and Tontie’s mature performance, and noting how Armar updates classic orphan narratives with a contemporary West African perspective while avoiding pure miserabilism.
Sales agent MMM Film Sales acquired worldwide rights ahead of the premiere, indicating commercial confidence in the title’s international potential.
For Ghana’s film industry, the double win carries broader significance. It demonstrates that locally rooted stories, when supported by strategic international partnerships, can compete successfully at A-list festivals. The presence of a fully Ghanaian principal cast and crew, combined with the film’s linguistic authenticity, reinforces the value of cultural specificity in global cinema.
Armar’s Instagram post, simple yet resonant, has circulated among Ghanaian and African film communities as a moment of shared celebration. By tagging Tontie and the festival, the director publicly acknowledged the collaborative effort behind the awards. The leopard emoji playfully nods to Locarno’s iconic Pardo (leopard) trophies, while the flags hihlighting the Ghana-Switzerland connection forged through the festival.
As Ego Reach We All begins its post-Locarno journey, further festival invitations and distribution opportunities are anticipated. The film’s success adds momentum to a growing wave of Ghanaian features gaining international attention and affirms the persistence of filmmakers who prioritise authentic storytelling even when resources are limited.
Armar’s brief, joyful post serves as both personal victory lap and public invitation to celebrate a new chapter for Ghanaian cinema.
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