Michael Kwaku Ola, Public Relation Officer for Film Producers Association of Ghana, FIPAG has penned a letter to the first gentleman of the land, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama beseeching him to save the Ghanaian movie industry from collapsing.

Ola in the long letter available to Zionfelix.com outlined five keynotes he thinks are sagging the film industry.

Below is an unedited copy of FIPAG PRO, Michael Kwaku Ola’s letter to the president of Ghana.

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF GHANA:

SAVE OUR FILM INDUSTRY FROM COLLAPSE

People have been enjoying Ghanaian films for decades and the industry has created a lot of jobs for the young and aged alike. The industry even though has not yet got the accurate statistics on how much it contributes to the industry, the last count in 2014, made available to the industry, about two million people actively working in the industry across the country.

I am not about to talk about whether we have an industry or not but what is relevant is that more and more people, each and every day, express interest in the film industry, investing time and money in it.

However, the ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, which is to cater for the film industry is of about 80% of their staff and agencies being tourism oriented and focused.

In such a place it would be absolutely laughable to think the interest of film industry will be on the hearts of the people in the ministry. Adding to that the 20% remaining are largely Culture oriented. The ministry even though not old enough, has not really sat down to factor the creative arts aspect, where the film industry is located, into their working and focus.

Apart from Dr. Nkrumah, who really understood the power of the medium of filmmaking and therefore sort to develop the industry from what our colonial masters left for us, no other government has invested in the industry as Osagyefo did. That is sad but it also tells us that they do not understand the power of the film industry. Or maybe we the filmmakers have not worked hard enough to show the vibrancy of the film industry.

Save the film industry from total collapse!

CHALLENGES OF THE INDUSTRY

LAWS

The film bill supposed to be passed to serve as a framework or blueprint, on which the industry could begin to be built, is now warming some shelves at parliament. Players of the industry are quite about it; actors, directors, producers, crew, marketers etc. everybody seems to have gone to sleep when told the bill was in parliament. Wake up filmmakers! There are bills in parliament that pre-dates my birth and have still not been passed!

Let us unite and demonstrate to the parliamentarians that that bill means a lot to us and need to be passed.

POLITICAL WILL AND INVESTMENT Mr. President, Politicians see the film industry as probably a comic place. I shudder to decipher that they don’t know it’s a business oriented, yes, moneymaking and loosing industry.

Since 1912 when Sir John Holt Bartholomew built the first Ghanaian cinema, called the Cinematographic Palace, followed by Mr. Ocansey with his Palladium in 1922, the film industry became a force in contributing to our GDP, but governments after Dr. Nkrumah, paid no attention to it probably because of their fear of the power of the film industry or they were just not interested leading to the sale of GFIC.

People invest hundreds of thousands of Ghana cedis and resources in the industry just like any other industry. Lots of people are employed in the industry, in so much as its collapse will create a huge problem of unemployment in this country.

Investment is what we need for the industry to thrive. We need investment to produce quality movies. We need investment to reclaim our cinemas to show the movies. We need investment to create proper marketing channels and orifices for the movies to reach out to the larger audiences. We need investment to build on the capacity of the filmmakers to excel to higher heights. We need investment to put up more training institutions to train actors, directors, producers, etc.

We need investment to fight piracy! Most of our movies are pirated in Togo and Nigeria and sent back to Ghana at cheaper prices than the original. No one is buying the originals anymore. Piracy is a huge mundane problem that needs huge investment and political will to fight.

INVESTMENT! INVESTMENT! INVESTMENT!!

INVESTMENT TRIPS Again your Excellency, why are filmmakers not included in your business trips, that are purposed on attracting investments into the country, as done by other African leaders?

Filmmakers should be included in the Presidential and Ministerial entourages, going on business and investments seeking tours, to also seek investment for the industry. Just like its done for the other industries, Mr. President.

We have been holding the fort with our resources and many of us lost a lot due to the long power crisis that befuddled this nation. Just as government sort to help other industries which were affected, we need government support to survive our industry Mr. President!

THE HYPOCRISY FACTOR India has a lot of industries but Bollywood is known around the world than the rest. Bollywood started making movies with their own language, Hindi, even though it is not the only language spoken in India. Bollywood has grown to be a big competitor to Hollywood, even though they hardly use the foreign language, English, in the films.

Nigerians after learning the art of filmmaking from Ghana followed the trend of the Indians by making their language prominent in their movies. Many Ghanaians can speak some Nigerian language because of Nigerian films.

I cannot begin to fathom, Mr. President, what is wrong with us as Ghanaians? We all admit that the Twi language is widely spoken than all other languages and movies done in the Twi language have much appeal than those in the English language. Why can’t we do away with the hypocrisy and produce movies in Twi or mix the local language with English and follow the trend of identity for our industry? Why are we still being hypocritical to accept the fact that the Twi language in our films is more marketable than the English language? Can we speak better English than the owners of the language? This hypocrisy is killing the industry.

The imaginary division in the industry: Akan movie and English movies, is a big joke that has affected the latter and still because of hypocrisy, people have refused to admit it.

Your excellency as you are encouraging patronage for made in Ghana goods, I implore on you to add a voice to the need to shoot more movies in our local languages, preferred to the foreign language. That is the way forward!

IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN PIRATED WORKS

Films produced locally go through the cinematography board for preview and classification before they can be showed or released. What amazes me is that we pay big sums of money for this and in return nothing?

Tones of foreign films are shipped into the country every month. They do not go through this board who cry for lack of financial resources to work.

Interesting! They are charging the poor local producers to pay before their works are previewed and don’t seem to know that if they do same to the foreign movies, they would be making millions of Ghana cedis to save the board from this diurnal baby whimper of ‘ we don’t have money to work’?

May be the local producers should boycott sending movies to the cinematographic board just as the importers of pirated movies do! What is good for the goose should equally be good for the gander.

Mr. President the cinematographic board needs no financial resource from the government but they need able men with ideas to function on their responsibilities. They should chase after the importers of pirated foreign movies and the local pirates! There is a lot and lots of money in there and by so doing will be helping the local producers.

There is more to be said, your Excellency, but I would like to pause here for now. May be next week I will write to you a second letter containing other issues.

Thank you.

Signed

Michael Kwaku Ola

P.R.O FIPAG

Concerned filmmaker