HBO’s Industry got Accra right. They just didn’t film there.

How HBO's Industry set an entire episode in Accra, but never set foot in Ghana.

HBO’s Industry, created by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, has become one of TV’s sharpest takes on young bankers trying to survive the cut-throat world of London banking. It’s messy, chaotic, and the kind of series that makes you glad you’re watching the drama instead of living it. Now in its fourth season, the show follows the ambitious and power-hungry group at the investment firm SternTao as they chase deals and slide deeper into morally murky territory. 

Season 4’s Episode 5, “Eyes Without a Face,” shakes things up. The SternTao team – Harper, Eric, Kwabena, and Sweetpea – are on edge in their hotel-room HQ. Their rival, Tender, stock is climbing, and SternTao’s plan to bet against it is already falling apart. In a desperate move, Sweetpea suggests they fly to Accra to check out their rival’s African operations. Suddenly, the story moves from London’s grey skies to the bright sunlight of Ghana. Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) and Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh) arrive with one goal: figure out what’s really going on with SwiftGC, a local processor recently snapped up by Tender. 

What they find is a business empire built on lies. But the real story isn’t just about fraud – it’s about the people they meet and the spaces they pass through. 

But here’s a twist. 

The Accra you see on screen isn’t Accra at all. 

It’s Durban, South Africa. 

For viewers, this swap isn’t as obvious. But it raises the bigger question: what happens when a global show tells a story set in Accra without actually filming there? Durban and Accra share similar coastal geography, warm light, and busy street life that can be easily manipulated on camera. Whether it’s for budget or logistical reasons, the swap matters more than the aesthetics in this case. Ghana’s film industry is left out of the process, missing out on jobs, collaborations, and the chance to shape how their city is represented. Local crews, location scouts, and production companies lose the chance to participate in telling stories that are set in their own city. It also ends up shaping how international audiences imagine Accra, even if what they’re seeing isn’t really Accra at all. When one African city can easily stand in for another, the continent risks looking like a single interchangeable landscape rather than a collection of distinct places with their own cultures and industries. It’s not that these cities are the same, but that they’re often treated as if they are. 

Africa is often flattened, stereotyped and misunderstood on screen by Western media: sweeping landscapes, wildlife shots and out-of-context shots of locals. Industry avoids those clichés and actually gets a lot right about Ghanaian culture, as we’re seeing the city through Kwabena and Sweetpea. Their trip turns into a series of messy encounters, particularly for Sweetpea. 

Sweetpea never quite falls into Accra’s rhythm. She keeps running into dead ends and frustrating setbacks. The camera often pulls back, placing her alone in wide shots – walking through a crowded market or standing on the beach after a tense phone call – showing her as isolated. When she tries to track down SwiftGC’s office, she just finds a PO box. She bribes the clerk for a phone number. After the receptionist shrugs and sends her away, she waits for two hours to speak to Tender’s CEO. And then, in one of the most brutal moments of the episode, one of Tender’s guys corners her in a bathroom, licks her cheek and punches her into a mirror, leaving her visibly shaken. 

Simon Ridgway / HBO

Kwabena, on the other hand, moves through the city in a totally different way. Where Sweetpea steps on the wrong toes, he finds the doors. At a beach bar, he slides into a karaoke with a group of tourists, relaxed and tipsy in a way Sweetpea never quite is. Later, a connection to Mrs Mensah (a distant family friend) leads them straight to the breakthrough they’ve been chasing. When they question her about the supposed $50 million SwiftGC sale, she just laughs. “You can write whatever nonsense you want,” she says “Doesn’t mean it’s true.” The discovery doesn’t come from a clear trail of official documents or company filings. It comes from conversation, a deep-belly laugh, familiarity, and knowing who’s who. “Ghana is very small at the top,” she says. “Eight of us squabbling over our father’s legacy.” Through Kwabena, Accra feels less like a dangerous maze and more like a living network. It’s a city where relationships matter more than paperwork. 

In this episode, Accra is where Tender’s financial illusion starts to crumble. At one point, Kwabena calls it “the Africa of it all.” It lands half as a joke, half as a nod to the bigger assumption behind the scam: somewhere in Africa, no one’s really checking, and no one really cares. That’s just how it works and Tender’s lies get swiftly buried in the city. The lies play out in the small, everyday details. Security guards ignore calls. SwiftGC’s office is nothing but an abandoned warehouse. A postal worker takes cash for a phone number. Sweetpea gets cornered and attacked in a bathroom. It’s through these interactions with people, rather than sweeping shots of the city, that the episode shows how Accra is imagined. It’s a city where oversight is lax, verification is optional, and truth can slip through the cracks. 

Here’s the thing: Industry actually gets the Ghanaian culture right, yet the network it relies on in the story doesn’t exist in the production. The city feels like Accra, but it isn’t. A Ghanaian cultural story is being told somewhere else, with another city standing in. That gap isn’t just invisible to the audience, it’s a missed opportunity for the local industry to grow. The relationships, the people, the systems that make the story believable are there on screen, but the real-world ecosystem behind them isn’t. 

There are two sides to this. Location doubling is common in film and TV. Cities stand in for each other all the time because of tight budgets, infrastructure, and convenience. But filmmaking is bigger than what we see on screen. It’s about the network behind it. In this case, that missing real-life network creates a new kind of erasure. That matters even more when you consider that Ghana already has a growing film industry of its own. The country produces hundreds of films every year and employs thousands of people across acting, production, and distribution. It’s an industry built on telling its own stories, rooted in local culture and lived experience. But it still faces challenges around funding and infrastructure. In this context, international productions have the chance to support and collaborate with local industries. 

Simon Ridgway / HBO

By the end of Episode 5, Industry nails the networks, the humour, and the way things actually work in Ghana — at least on screen. It feels authentic, sure. But it’s a kind of surface-level authenticity. The culture is there, the details are right, but the people behind it don’t benefit. Off screen, the story never really touches the people or industry it draws from. It’s a Ghanaian story told somewhere else in Africa. And that shifts what we mean when we say “representation matters.” It’s not just about getting the culture right on screen. It’s about who gets to be part of telling that story, and who actually benefits from it. Accra is used, but not included. And that’s why Kwabena’s comment, calling it “the Africa of it all,” sticks with you long after the credits roll. 

Written by: Taye

HBO’s Industry, created by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, has become one of TV’s sharpest takes on young bankers trying to survive the cut-throat world of London banking. It’s messy, chaotic, and the kind of series that makes you glad you’re watching the drama instead of living it. Now in its fourth season, the show follows the ambitious and power-hungry group at the investment firm SternTao as they chase deals and slide deeper into morally murky territory. 

Season 4’s Episode 5, “Eyes Without a Face,” shakes things up. The SternTao team – Harper, Eric, Kwabena, and Sweetpea – are on edge in their hotel-room HQ. Their rival, Tender, stock is climbing, and SternTao’s plan to bet against it is already falling apart. In a desperate move, Sweetpea suggests they fly to Accra to check out their rival’s African operations. Suddenly, the story moves from London’s grey skies to the bright sunlight of Ghana. Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) and Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh) arrive with one goal: figure out what’s really going on with SwiftGC, a local processor recently snapped up by Tender. 

What they find is a business empire built on lies. But the real story isn’t just about fraud – it’s about the people they meet and the spaces they pass through. 

But here’s a twist. 

The Accra you see on screen isn’t Accra at all. 

It’s Durban, South Africa. 

For viewers, this swap isn’t as obvious. But it raises the bigger question: what happens when a global show tells a story set in Accra without actually filming there? Durban and Accra share similar coastal geography, warm light, and busy street life that can be easily manipulated on camera. Whether it’s for budget or logistical reasons, the swap matters more than the aesthetics in this case. Ghana’s film industry is left out of the process, missing out on jobs, collaborations, and the chance to shape how their city is represented. Local crews, location scouts, and production companies lose the chance to participate in telling stories that are set in their own city. It also ends up shaping how international audiences imagine Accra, even if what they’re seeing isn’t really Accra at all. When one African city can easily stand in for another, the continent risks looking like a single interchangeable landscape rather than a collection of distinct places with their own cultures and industries. It’s not that these cities are the same, but that they’re often treated as if they are. 

Africa is often flattened, stereotyped and misunderstood on screen by Western media: sweeping landscapes, wildlife shots and out-of-context shots of locals. Industry avoids those clichés and actually gets a lot right about Ghanaian culture, as we’re seeing the city through Kwabena and Sweetpea. Their trip turns into a series of messy encounters, particularly for Sweetpea. 

Sweetpea never quite falls into Accra’s rhythm. She keeps running into dead ends and frustrating setbacks. The camera often pulls back, placing her alone in wide shots – walking through a crowded market or standing on the beach after a tense phone call – showing her as isolated. When she tries to track down SwiftGC’s office, she just finds a PO box. She bribes the clerk for a phone number. After the receptionist shrugs and sends her away, she waits for two hours to speak to Tender’s CEO. And then, in one of the most brutal moments of the episode, one of Tender’s guys corners her in a bathroom, licks her cheek and punches her into a mirror, leaving her visibly shaken. 

Simon Ridgway / HBO

Kwabena, on the other hand, moves through the city in a totally different way. Where Sweetpea steps on the wrong toes, he finds the doors. At a beach bar, he slides into a karaoke with a group of tourists, relaxed and tipsy in a way Sweetpea never quite is. Later, a connection to Mrs Mensah (a distant family friend) leads them straight to the breakthrough they’ve been chasing. When they question her about the supposed $50 million SwiftGC sale, she just laughs. “You can write whatever nonsense you want,” she says “Doesn’t mean it’s true.” The discovery doesn’t come from a clear trail of official documents or company filings. It comes from conversation, a deep-belly laugh, familiarity, and knowing who’s who. “Ghana is very small at the top,” she says. “Eight of us squabbling over our father’s legacy.” Through Kwabena, Accra feels less like a dangerous maze and more like a living network. It’s a city where relationships matter more than paperwork. 

In this episode, Accra is where Tender’s financial illusion starts to crumble. At one point, Kwabena calls it “the Africa of it all.” It lands half as a joke, half as a nod to the bigger assumption behind the scam: somewhere in Africa, no one’s really checking, and no one really cares. That’s just how it works and Tender’s lies get swiftly buried in the city. The lies play out in the small, everyday details. Security guards ignore calls. SwiftGC’s office is nothing but an abandoned warehouse. A postal worker takes cash for a phone number. Sweetpea gets cornered and attacked in a bathroom. It’s through these interactions with people, rather than sweeping shots of the city, that the episode shows how Accra is imagined. It’s a city where oversight is lax, verification is optional, and truth can slip through the cracks. 

Here’s the thing: Industry actually gets the Ghanaian culture right, yet the network it relies on in the story doesn’t exist in the production. The city feels like Accra, but it isn’t. A Ghanaian cultural story is being told somewhere else, with another city standing in. That gap isn’t just invisible to the audience, it’s a missed opportunity for the local industry to grow. The relationships, the people, the systems that make the story believable are there on screen, but the real-world ecosystem behind them isn’t. 

There are two sides to this. Location doubling is common in film and TV. Cities stand in for each other all the time because of tight budgets, infrastructure, and convenience. But filmmaking is bigger than what we see on screen. It’s about the network behind it. In this case, that missing real-life network creates a new kind of erasure. That matters even more when you consider that Ghana already has a growing film industry of its own. The country produces hundreds of films every year and employs thousands of people across acting, production, and distribution. It’s an industry built on telling its own stories, rooted in local culture and lived experience. But it still faces challenges around funding and infrastructure. In this context, international productions have the chance to support and collaborate with local industries. 

Simon Ridgway / HBO

By the end of Episode 5, Industry nails the networks, the humour, and the way things actually work in Ghana — at least on screen. It feels authentic, sure. But it’s a kind of surface-level authenticity. The culture is there, the details are right, but the people behind it don’t benefit. Off screen, the story never really touches the people or industry it draws from. It’s a Ghanaian story told somewhere else in Africa. And that shifts what we mean when we say “representation matters.” It’s not just about getting the culture right on screen. It’s about who gets to be part of telling that story, and who actually benefits from it. Accra is used, but not included. And that’s why Kwabena’s comment, calling it “the Africa of it all,” sticks with you long after the credits roll. 

Written by: Taye

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