Colonial mindset is killing movie industry|Ash Bowa

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A local Movie Producer , Ash Bowa has bemoaned the growing mentality Ghanaians have that Local movies are not entertaining enough.

This he said has led to the patronage of foreign movies (series especially) at the expense of Ghanaian local movies, which he referred to us the slave trade mindset.

Ash Bowa questioned if Ghanaians cannot produce good and better series. The downhearted movie producer criticized Ghana’s educational system of heightening the syndrome, he said all teaching and learning done in our school from crèche to the university is of foreign domain.

“…we are still in the slave trade era, the white have brainwashed us to the extent that we think the best only comes from them…”

“…even our educational system is the same, from crèche to university, all we learn is the foreigner’s mindset, and this has come a long way to affect our movie and music industry…” he added.
He made this revelation to DJ Fox on Top Showbiz where he added that the percentage of patronage of foreign movies in our country is about 90% whilst our very own is just about 10%, this is very bad, he said.

Poor movie productions

A co panelist on the same Program , Ernest Kwesi Ennin ,of Media Excel also blamed the low sales made by the Ghanaian movie industry on the poor content as well as picture and sound quality.

He said Ghanaians known for their high sense of taste will go in for the best and will therefore not purchase bad movies made in Ghana.

In a counter reaction Ash Bowa, said the situation is so because of the lack of ready sponsorship for local movies as pertains in the advanced countries.

“We use what we have, critics should re-think, executive producers in a country like USA do not use their money for production but get sponsors to help out and this is not same in Ghana The government does not even help us,” he added.

Solutions

All the panelists on the show agreed that Structures should be set right to sustain the movie and music industry.

“In other countries, movies are premiered in over 300 cinemas for money spent to be retrieved before the widespread of the movie. So if Ghanaian producers will stop the barter trading of their movies and premier it well, there will still be hope for the industry”. Mel Kwesi Davis CEO of Events Republic and music manager added.

Ummi an entertainment pundit also on the show said all Ghanaians have to do is to hold in high esteem their own.

Kojo Preko, another entertainment pundit also added that, showing of 70% of local content and 30% of foreign content will help as specified in the film bill which is awaiting passage by parliament. He further suggested foreign content specification as included in the bill should be reduced to 10% instead.