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The setting is a bustling, modern city in Ghana on Africa's west coast. The Appiah family is typical of the new Ghanaian middle class, whose members are doing their level, genteel best to carry on the traditions of the now-departed white colonials. Kofi Appiah, the father, a prosperous businessman, has installed his family in a comfortable suburban bungalow, drives a Volkswagen, wears a dark suit and white shirt to the office and lays down the firm law to his devoted wife and his somewhat more skeptical children.

At the opening of Kwaw Ansah's ''Love Brewed ... in the African Pot,'' the family is welcoming home the eldest Appiah child, the pretty, obedient Aba, who has been at boarding school. ''And do you know why I sent you away?'' Kofi asks Aba at the reunion. As she always does when catechized in this fashion, Aba lowers her eyes and gives the correct answer. ''To get a good education, Papa,'' she says, ''and to become a lady.''

Kofi is proud of Aba and is not at all surprised when an influential councillor seeks to arrange a marriage between Aba and his attache case-toting son. But Kofi is not a Victorian tyrant. He allows Aba to make up her own mind and she, to his dismay, chooses instead to marry a young auto mechanic named Joe. This becomes one love match in which everything goes wrong.

''Love Brewed'' begins deceptively, as if it were going to be a gentle satire, but it becomes a good deal more than that. Without seeming to change gears, Mr. Ansah, who produced, wrote and directed this very good film, shifts from satire to comedy and then to melodrama in which the myths of the African past triumph over the borrowed manners of a precarious present. Like Ousmane Sembene, that very talented Senegalese film maker, Mr. Ansah takes a jaundiced view of black Africans who attempt to deny their heritage. He has a fine sense of humor, a perfectly natural appreciation for things supernatural, and an unsurprised sort of humanity I associate with Jean Renoir.

Kofi Appiah, played with comic authority by George Wilson, is initially aghast at his daughter's choice not to marry above her station. He cannot understand how she could settle for a fellow whose menfolk are still fishermen, as those in Kofi's family once had been.

He comes very close to being unredeemably pompous when he says of the marriage to Joe, ''Drop-outs always end up with riff-raffs.'' He refuses to attend the tribal marriage ceremonies and remains at home, where he sadly dreams of the posh Anglican wedding that will never be.

Yet when the marriage of Aba and Joe falls apart, through a series of melodramatic circumstances over which neither has any control, Kofi doesn't hesitate to seek aid for his daughter through witchcraft.

In much the same way, the film, which employs the manners of Western comedy at first, finally embraces the style of an oral literature that still keeps alive ancient tales of sorcery.

Mr. Ansah, 40 years old, studied film and television production in London, New York and Hollywood. ''Love Brewed,'' reportedly the first privately financed Ghanaian feature, is a most accomplished beginning.

CAST & CREW

• Aba Appiah . . . . . Anima Misa Joe Quansah . . . . . Reginal Tsiboe Kofi Appiah . . . . . George Wilson Araba Mansah . . . . . Jumoke Debayo Mr. Bensah . . . . . Kofi Yirenkyi Atta Quansah . . . . . Emmanuel Agebenowu Fred Dickson . . . . . Kwesi Kay Kojo Appiah . . . . . Emmanuel Dadson Ikua Tawiah . . . . . Mary Yirenkyi Councillor Bensah . . . . . George Browne Michael Ayivor . . . . . Charles Bucknor Adu Appiah . . . . . Kwaku Owusu-Antwi
• Nana Badu . . . . . Harry Quarshie Heartbroken Wanderer . . . . . Efua Kobina . . . . . Enoch Botchway Vukudu's Priest . . . . . Sam Ansong-Manu Ama Appiah . . . . . Naa Ayele Attoh
• Director
• Kwaw Ansah