Can film makers come together to revamp their industry?

On Thursday, September 14, 2017, Kumawood film producers, actors and actresses hit the streets of Kumasi to demonstrate against the influx of foreign telenovelas on our television screens. The demonstrators subsequently presented a petition to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to add his voice to the fight for more local content to be shown. This, I must say, is a good cause. But, the question is: will the demonstration have any impact on the local industry? Why did they choose to petition the Otumfuo instead of the Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture? We were all in this country when Yvonne Nelson started collecting signatures for the same cause and had no one helping her do that. What actually prevented Kumawood from joining that cause rather than organizing a demonstration on the same issue? Perhaps, the Kumawood classify the English movie productions are foreign content too. Not far from right, the two sides of our local industry is indirectly telling Ghanaians that they cannot come together to fight for a common cause. One must begin to realise that it is about time the industry players came together for that purpose else Ghanaians  and law makers will not take them serious.

Gone are the days when we settled for anything the local film makers produced. There were no technological equipment to help people have options to choose from but now YouTube and other video apps have given people the opportunity to choose from a wide range of movies and videos. The monopolistic way of production is a thing of the past and the local producers should get over it, and adopt new strategies that will help them come out with quality movies. The PRO for the demonstrators whose name wasn’t stated, in an interview with TV3 on Midday Live on Thursday, 14^th September, 2017, said that another reason for the demonstration is to make government pass the Broadcasting Bill into law. The Broadcasting Bill when passed will give the local producers 70% of the TV content and 30% to foreign content and I feel that is in the right direction because it will help reduce the rate at which foreign series have invaded and killing the local industry. However, can the local producers live up to the task of producing 70% of quality local content? Not far from wrong, most of the products from Kumawood are of low quality. They produce movies full of insults, bad sound and bad editing that make it difficult for people, who are exposed to quality products of competitors from the western world, to patronize it. On the contrary, passing of the Broadcasting Bill will be meaningless if the local producers don’t make efforts in creating/writing good scripts for quality production and also come together, under one umbrella, to drum home their concerns. The writer is a student-journalist at Jayee University college. Email: mzeve18@gmail Editor’s note: Views expressed are solely that of the writer and exclusive of editors.3news.com