Guess what! Another Kumawood movie has been released and the title is ‘Maricruz’. If you are probably in Ghana and you are a fan of Mexican soap operas, you would know where the name Maricruz comes from.

‘Corazon Indomable’, popularly known in Ghana as ‘Wild at Heart’, is a Mexican telenovela which is aired on UTV. Maricruz is just a character in the telenovela whose name is even mentioned more than the original name of the soap opera itself. It baffles my mind how ‘Wild at Heart’ has gained rapid popularity in Ghana within a short period of time.

Although I know Kumawood producers are fond of riding at the back of popular incidents to produce movies, I never thought it would come to a time when they will use the name of a famous character in a soap opera to ‘shoot’ a movie. I still can remember movies like Tonga, Oh Vera, AyariCough, Asamoah Gyan, Yebe Dii Keke, and many other popular terms that popped-up in the country sometime ago.

What are producers in Kumawood not doing right? Should they always produce movies out of popular terms that emerge in the country? I can confidently say these producers do not learn at all. Or should I say they do not know jack about film-making? Probably yes.

The level of creativity exhibited by some of them is nothing to write home about. More often than not, the storylines to such movies revolve around the incident that brought about the term. No new twists are added to the original storylines.

I perfectly understand that, most Kumawood movies are comedy. Does that mean film-makers should not reason, learn, and be creative enough to put together an original comic movie? Should they always depend on popular terms before they can churn out movies? These are all questions that need serious answers. It would not be surprising to hear that such producers have stopped producing movies, simply because new catchy terms are not popping up in the system. How funny that would be.

It’s just too obvious that more than few people in our movie industries are refusing to enrich their knowledge in the field that they themselves have chosen to work in. Being in their present state is a satisfaction to them. The internet has made lots of things become so easy. If one wouldn’t have time to pay huge sum of money and sit in a classroom and learn, can that film-maker not use the internet to learn such basic things on his/her own with the help of free tutorials?

Kumawood isn’t growing well enough, and it’s all because of these petty things that the film-makers do not pay attention to. They should always know that ‘common’ knowledge does not come to those who are lazy enough to learn.