Someone From The ‘Censorship Board’ Has Been Leaking Shirley Frimpong Manso’s Movies Before They Come Out…

The cost of producing quality and world class movies like the ones we have been enjoying from the camp of Ms. Shirley Frimpong Manso and her Sparrow Production is very high, and somehow disproportionate to even the returns.

Any well informed African movie lover can attest to the huge disparity between Shirley Frimpong Manso’s movies and the bunch of crap we have on our markets.

The difference in quality may be due to talent, experience and passion. However, the amount of money Sparrow Production pumps into its movies also plays a substantial part in influencing the quality of their movies.

It is greatly unfair that, no matter the quality and the amount of money spent in producing a Ghanaian movie, the default market price has always been 5GHC.

This therefore means quality movie production houses like Sparrow Production’s only hope and avenue of having a break-even is to be able to attract as many people (tertiary students and young workers) as possible to their premieres and cinema openings. By now, you should be aware that VCD sales yield nothing since piracy rules that corner.

Premieres and Cinema showings are the ONLY viable avenues sustaining these quality productions. It is poignant to hear that, some mucky elements within the ‘Ghana Film Censorship Board’ is hell bent on rendering this avenue useless by continuously leaking movies submitted to the ‘Board’ for approval.

Information reaching GhanaCelebrities.Com has it that, ace Director/Scriptwriter/Producer-Shirley Frimpong Manso is shocked and somehow mystified by the trend of developments concerning the ‘Censorship Board’ and the unsolicited leakage of her movies (Adams Apples).

Before any movie can be sold or given a public premiere inGhana, it must first be submitted to the ‘Censorship Board’ for a review and approval. Such a simple job intended to help the movie industry’s growth and clamp down on ‘useless soft porn’ movies seem to be rather killing the industry (leaking good movies) while allowing ‘soft porns’ to pass unto the market.

According to our insider, few days after Shirley Frimpong Manso submitted chapter 1 of her ‘Adams Apples’ movie which had the inscription ‘Preview Copy, Do Not Distribute…Property Of Sparrow Production’ to the ‘Censorship Board’ for review and approval, this copy ended up at the various university campuses in Ghana where students distributed the movie among themselves. The same thing happened to chapter 2 of ‘Adams Apples’ which got her very worried.

GhanaCelebrities.Com is told that, in order for those at Sparrow Production to narrow down on where the leak was coming from, they asked for the inscription ‘Censorship Board Copy, Do Not Distribute…Property Of Sparrow Production’ to be printed on the copy they were going to submit to the Censorship Board.

And guess what, this copy (with the above inscription) has also leaked and students fromUniversityofGhana, Legon, NIIT, Valley View and other institutions are currently enjoying the movie for free.

Where does this leave our movie industry? If a body (institution) under the Ministry Information entrusted to ensure the growth of our movie industry is involved in such silly and heart breaking activities capable of killing the passion of film makers, then where is the future of our movie industry?

From what GhanaCelebrities.Com has gathered, distressed filmmaker Shirley Frimpong Manso does not even know what to do next… By Law, she has to submit chapter 4 of ‘Adams Apples’ to this same ‘sick’ Board but then she probably fears that, like the other 3 movies, it will also be leaked.

When movies get leaked, no one even bothers to come to the premieres or buy the VCDs. Who will want to pay for something he/she has already seen for free anyway?

This is very pathetic and appalling…Who wants to work so hard for free? The industry has no support from the Government, no proper means of distribution and piracy rocks inGhanalike hell. With the latest addition of movie leakages, the guess can just be one; the industry is heading into a deep pit.

I heard the Censorship Board has launched an investigation into these incidents to fish out the bad nuts. Until then, let’s get talking…