For journalists · documentary producers · photographers · authors

For press — fixer, accreditation, expert access on the West African coast

When the story is in the room and the room takes years to enter.

Heritage and Routes operates as press fixer and access producer for journalists, documentary producers, photographers, and authors working on the Vodun world, the trans-Atlantic slave trade memorial sites, West African mask traditions, panafricanism, and the contemporary politics of culture in Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria. We are based in Cotonou. Our founder Fèmi is academically trained and available as expert source.

What we provide

Access, accreditation, context

Press work on this coast lives or dies on three things: the relationship that opens the door, the accreditation that keeps you inside, and the context that lets you understand what you are seeing. Western reporting on West African religious traditions has a long history of misreading them as folklore, exoticism, or sensationalism. We exist, in part, because the story is better than that and the reporting can be too — when the access is real and the context is given.

We work with serious press: investigative, long-form, documentary, scholarly. We do not work with framing that treats the Vodun as voodoo-spectacle, the mask traditions as primitive curiosities, or the slave trade memorials as dark tourism. If your editorial direction needs that framing, we cannot help you. If it needs the opposite, we can probably open more doors than you expected.

Services

What press work looks like with us

Editorial discipline

What we ask of you in return

Honour the protocols we negotiate. Reckless filming, breach of the photography rules at restricted moments, or coverage that ends up framing the practice as superstition all impact future access for everyone we work with.

Pay your fixers and your scholars properly. West African scholars are often paid a fraction of what foreign expert sources receive for the same expertise. We will not facilitate exploitative rates. Our pricing structure for scholar honoraria is published in the partnership packet.

Send us the final piece. Not for editorial control — we do not have that — but for our archive and so that the scholars and chieftaincies who opened their doors can see what came of it. This is a small ask that most foreign press fail to do, and it matters here.

Accreditation calendar

Which festivals we accredit for, and when to ask

Festival accreditation is not a formality you complete on arrival. Each of these is granted by a different body — an organising committee, a traditional council, a tourism authority — and each works to its own calendar.

• Vodun Days — Ouidah, Benin. 2–9 January 2027.
• Porto-Novo Mask Festival — Benin. 7–8 August 2027.
• Fetu Afahye — Cape Coast, Ghana. First Saturday of September.
• PANAFEST and Emancipation Day — Cape Coast, Ghana. July–August, odd years.
• Hogbetsotso — Anloga, Ghana. November.
• Evala — Kara, Togo. July.
• Agbogbo-Za — Notsé, Togo. September.

Lead times. Six to eight weeks minimum for festival accreditation. Drone authorisation at Vodun Days, Porto-Novo and PANAFEST needs the same six weeks. A Benin filming permit is issued by the Director General of the ADAC and should be counted in weeks, not days — we confirm the current delay with the agency before you build your schedule around it.

Accreditation covers ground and photographic access within a perimeter negotiated with the organisers. It does not cover ritual access, which is a separate conversation with the lineages and is never guaranteed in advance.

Rates and terms

How we price

Fixing is a professional line of business at Heritage and Routes, and it is priced as one. You receive a written rate card at first contact — before you brief us, not after.

Three units, depending on the work:

• Day rate — press and photographic assignments, two-day minimum.
• Project rate with milestone payments — documentary and television, where the value sits in the preparation as much as in the shooting days.
• Fixed-fee packages — ADAC filming permit, crew accreditation, negotiated ritual access. Priced as a deliverable rather than as time spent, because most of that work is done months before your crew lands.

Terms. Forty per cent on commission, balance within fifteen days of wrap. Cancellation inside seven days is charged at fifty per cent, inside forty-eight hours at one hundred.

Two lines are never marked up. The counter-gift to the lineages that grant access appears on your invoice at cost, itemised — you see exactly what reaches the community. Honoraria for Beninese, Togolese and Ghanaian scholars are paid at our published rate. We do not negotiate them down, and we will not facilitate the practice of paying West African expertise a fraction of what a foreign expert receives for the same interview.

Tell us about the project.

First contact, NDA on request, no obligation. We respond within 48 hours.