Lydia Forson co-wrote the script for ‘Masquerades’, a hilarious Christmas family comedy movie.

Why has she veered off to writing instead of concentrating on her acting career? Listen to her: “I did writing in school. I did creative writing in school. Unfortunately people don’t know that part of me. I love to write. I have been doing some kind of writing behind the scenes for some time now. I do script revision”, she confessed to GhanaCelebrities.Com.

‘Masquerades’ is a hilarious family comedy that explores today’s contemporary family life during Christmas. It is a movie with few casts – not relatively a serious story as compared to what Lydia has done over the years. It is a movie that dwells on to what extent people will go to achieve their selfish thoughts. When self-ordained king of deception, Uncle Asante [Kataware] connives with his lawyer friend Nicholas [Adjetey Anang] to fake his death, he didn’t think of the aftermath of his actions.

His death forces his niece Nana Yaa [Lydia Forson] to return home for the funeral meeting Tunde Adams [Desmond Elliot], a family friend who has also returned from the UK. Tunde borrows things from a friend to make Nana Yaa happy, whiles she lies to keep him.

Uncle Asante’s funeral expenses pile up and in pursuit of social status each of the family members are determined to maintain a lifestyle that will compliment how rich they “Claim” to be. However underneath all that is left unsaid, is a dysfunctional family struggling to keep up appearances, and as the story unfolds we are introduced to a family of secrets where everyone has something to hide.

Lydia told GhanaCelebrities.Com how the story came about. “When the ideas first came in, I called my [Habiba Nelson] manager up and we both stayed up all night and we develop the story. We wanted a family story. We wanted a story that people could just go with their whole family, kids, mom, dad, go and watch and just really bond and then have fun.”

“We chose the theme Christmas because I love Christmas, it’s one of my favourite time of the year, anybody who knows me know that I love Christmas but over the years I think that Christmas has lost its meaning.”

Talking about what makes Christmas fun to her, she said, “What makes it fun? For me, growing up, Christmas was about family, about sitting down, eating food, watching a good movie. Just really bonding. Not doing anything bad because I was too young to do anything bad.”

The movie has been tagged as a comedy. Commenting on it as a co-writer, she said, “I don’t think I [we] dwell on comedy. I love comedy. As actress you only feature in productions that you get the opportunity to do, you hardly have the chance to pick the characters to be part of. If you get the script, you just pray that it’s the character you really want to play. I love comedy because I love when people laugh.

I mean no matter how bad day you are having, when you are able to laugh about, it’s just food for the soul.” She concluded by saying that, “It’s just a great collaboration between me and my manager. It’s great to have someone who shares your vision and who is ready to push things. I called her up and we started talking. It was a great opportunity to bring out the other side of me that people don’t know.”

‘Masquerades’ is produced by Zedec Entertainment in association with rLG Communications and directed by Xavier Arijs. It stars Ebenezer Donkor known as Kataware, Lydia Forson, Desmond Elliot, Adjetey Anang and Senanu Gbedawo. Premiering of the movie is on December 16 at the Silver Bird Cinemas inside the Accra Mall.