Celebs
Jackie Appiah accused of favoritism by peers at the Cannes Film Festival
Actress Jackie Appiah became a subject of gossip and bashing at the close of last week when pictures of her on the red carpet at the opening ceremony of the 65th Cannes Film Festival in France reached Ghana.
The photos showed Jackie smartly dressed in an elegant hand-beaded Kente dress by JiL and was reported to have joined a list of top film stars from across the world at the opening ceremony of the festival.
Subsequent checks showed that the complaints are mainly from Jackie’s colleague actresses and actors who complained that it was unfair for Jackie to have been made to take the lead to the festival when they were to travel as a group to represent Ghana, and the Chief Executive of the Ghana Movie Awards, on whose ticket the stars were to attend the festival, is being accused of discrimination and showing an unfair bias to Jackie.
One of the aggrieved actors who pleaded anonymity noted, “it is not fair that when you are to represent your country at such an international festival and you are to go as a group then one person would be made to take the lead and go ahead of the rest to walk the red carpet and pose for the photos so that later the rest of us would go and join her and be treated like back benchers.”
Further revelations also indicate that when the Ghanaian actors and actresses attended the festival last year, not all of them had the opportunity to walk the red carpet and this became an issue, with some of them crying foul.
Some of them are therefore upset at the fact that the apparent discrimination seems to have been repeated this year as only Jackie Appiah was made to be at the opening ceremony and pose for the international media while her colleagues were made to leave Ghana at a time the festival was underway.
But in refuting the allegations, the organizer of the trip for the Ghanaian contingent indicated that it was easier to arrange for Jackie’s trip than the others since she held a Canadian passport.
“How can I discriminate and favour one star against the rest? I would have loved to have even sent as many as 100 actors and actresses. Truth is what I have told you, Jackie uses a Canadian passport because she was born there or something; so it was easier for her to fly to France.”
“We are working on the travelling arrangements for the rest and trust me, they would all be at the Festival. It has not been easy but we are getting some cooperation from the Netherlands, Embassy and they would all be there even including a Ghanaian media contingent,” he explained.
