blank
search-icon
Blog

These Indications Show that the Ghanaian Movie Industries Are Failing. Part 1 of My Thoughts

Martha Ankomah
Martha Ankomah

In terms of movie production, Ghana has really come a long way. We have been able to establish our own movie industries. Various aspects of our movie industries are doing pretty good. However, I have put together some clues which indicate that our movie industries are still performing below required standards.

Split of our the Movie Industry into Several Industries

I do not know whether we have a single movie industry in Ghana or quite a number of such industries. Each passing day, new industries are formed without one knowing the real objectives behind the formation of such industries. Latest to join the already existing woods, as we reported yesterday, are Vollywood and Tallywood. In a small country like Ghana, one would not expect numerous divisions within its movie industry. Here lies the case where a wood-like name is attached to every single movie produced from a specific region of the country.

Ideally, a movie industry is made up of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking. Among other things, these include production companies, film studios, film festivals etc. Since time immemorial, not a single major film festival has been organised in the country; yet, we wake up on our feet and just create industries anyhow, with poor-quality produced movies from such industries.

Why don’t all these self-styled movie industries come together under one big umbrella and learn from the expertise of one another, take Ghana’s movie industry to the next level (unless they are comfortable with their present stage) before finally thinking of doing their own things.

Organizing Events/Festivals out of Movies is a No-Go Area within Our Movie Industries

Making our movie industry grow is not about embarking on mass production. Organising meaningful movie events is one sure way of growing a movie industry. In our case, the numerous movie industries we have in Ghana consider this area as a no-go place. The only events they are capable of organising are premieres and award shows.

When we take our music industry for example, quite a number of events are organised to project our music and musicians. Even if such events don’t take our musicians to the international scene, they are made known to Ghanaians both home and abroad. Same cannot be said about our movie industries. It is time momentous events are organised for our movie industries to showcase what we’ve got.

We Can’t Discover More New Talents

How can a movie industry grow when new actors are not discovered? The success of a movie industry, among other things, depends on discovering new talents to replace aging and outdated ones. The Ghanaian movie industries are filled with same old faces that can be spotted in every movie that is released in the country. Much is not done to unearth, train, and feature new talents to fit in the shoes of the old faces we see on our screens.

It will be shocking to find out some years to come that there are no good actors to cast in movies again, simply because the ones we have currently have grown old.

Lack of this has compelled our actors not to learn and add “value” to their acting careers. Aside this, our movie industries do not encourage our actors to take risks in terms of the characters they play in movies. If it is not about the lover boy or lover girl character we see every day, it is surely going to be that comedic character who makes people laugh.

It is about time new talents are nurtured and featured in our movies to save our movie industries from dying prematurely.

Filmmakers Fail to Take Risks

There is no businessman or entity that can flourish when that person is afraid of taking risks. Same can be said about our movie industries and filmmakers. Such ones are highly afraid of embracing new innovations and experimentation in various business models.

What I’ve realise is that, filmmakers within our movie industries are apprehensive of failing publicly. This has led them in shunning new-fangled approaches that will lift the industries high. I throw the challenge to filmmakers and other stakeholders to take risks and be practical with those risks. Having this kind of mentality will surely safeguard the movie industries from failing.

No Measures to Curb Piracy

Each and every passing day, movies are pirated in this country. Filmmakers and industry players have raised concerns about this issue several times on various media platforms. What they fail to realise is that piracy is not an issue that can be fought with the mere mouth.

Drastic measures and actions ought to be put in place in order to curb this pain in the neck. The Ghanaian movie industries will continue to fail if they don’t employ tactics to deal with this. People will continue to pirate movies and make more monies for themselves whilst the movie industries continue to wallow in the dark.

All the above mentioned ways need to be considered carefully by our filmmakers and other key industry players to safeguard our industries.



READ ALSO: Refused A UK Visa? CLICK HERE FOR HELP

CLICK HERE to subscribe to our daily up-to-date news!!

POPULAR POSTS

LATEST NEWS

MORE FROM Blog

Leave a Reply