Ghanaian-American filmmaker Amartei Armar’s first feature film, Ego Reach We All (also known as Our Time Will Come), has emerged as one of the standout successes of the 79th Locarno Film Festival. The Ghana-France-Saudi Arabia co-production collected two significant prizes when the festival closed in Locarno, Switzerland, on 15 August 2026.
Lead actor Idrissu Tontie Jr. received the Pardo for Best Performance in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present competition). The film itself was awarded the Pardo for Change, a prize worth CHF 20,000 (approximately $25,000) presented to the director.
Written and directed by Armar and produced by Yemoh Ike, the 105-minute drama follows two orphans, Owusu and Adobea, as they journey across the Ghanaian countryside in search of their last legitimate parent, hoping to reclaim their identities.
Upon arriving in the chaotic urban landscape of Accra, they encounter the Jackals, a group of young people surviving through lock-picking and petty theft. Their quest is upended by this new reality. The film is performed in Twi, Ga and Pidgin and was shot entirely in Ghana with a predominantly local crew.
Armar, born in 1991 to a Ghanaian father and an American mother, has long explored themes of identity, belonging and cultural navigation in his work. He trained in film production at the University of British Columbia before relocating to Ghana.
His earlier short film Tsutsue (2022) made history as the first Ghanaian production selected for the official short film competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Ego Reach We All expands on ideas first explored in his 2018/2019 short Vagabonds, which also featured Tontie.
The feature received support from the Red Sea Fund, Fonds Image de la Francophonie and other partners, and was co-produced with French outfit La Luna Productions (Sébastien Hussenot). Cinematography was handled by John Kwame Markin, editing by Marie-Pierre Frappier, and the score by Amine Bouhafa and Kweku Sackey (K.O.G.). The cast also includes Dorothy Adobea Tandoh, Emmanuel Wilberforce, Barbara Yong-Jin, Emmanuel Owusu Ofori, O’Bryan Nana Kwame Enyan, Gabriel Narh Addo, Nelly Bilson and Kwame Brenya.
Critics responding to the Locarno premiere praised the film’s emotional depth and assured direction. A Variety review described it as an “emotionally absorbing Ghanaian drama” that updates elements of classic orphan stories with a West African sensibility, noting Tontie’s “adult-sized performance” and the film’s atmospheric shift from rural road journey to urban survival.
The review highlighted Armar’s empathetic approach, avoiding unrelieved misery in favour of stories of bonds forged through shared adversity.
The Concorso Cineasti del Presente section is dedicated to emerging directors and first or second features that point toward new directions in cinema. Ego Reach We All world-premiered there on 7 August 2026. Sales agent MMM Film Sales acquired worldwide rights ahead of the festival, signalling strong international interest.
Armar has spoken previously about the personal roots of the project, describing it as a semi-autobiographical exploration of cultural identity and the search for belonging after moving between the United States and Ghana.