Don’t blame death of Ghanaian movie industry on dumsor- Prince Tsegah

Entertainment critic Prince Tsegah says it is a non starter for any movie producer to blame the perceived decline of the Ghanaian movie industry on dumsor.

Speaking on Hitz FM’s Entertainment This Week programme, Mr. Tsegah says Ghana’s major competitor, Nollywood has been able to build and sustain their standards despite their worsening power situation to the detriment of Ghanaians.

‘Their (Nigerian) power problem is still worse than ours even now as I speak. But they don’t use it as an excuse (saying) we don’t have power we cannot produce etc. For me I feel it’s only a bad workman who blames his tools’.

He says as far back as the year 2000, the yearn for Ghanaian movies was nothing to write home about. The entertainment critic said the decision by some television stations at the time to show more Nigerian movies which had boomed on the Ghanaian movie market crowded out the interest of Ghanaian movies.

‘And I remember back in the day we as entertainment critics were fighting that we should start showing movies of our own but then we had few movies’ Prince Tsegah noted.

He suggested that collaboration between Ghanaian and Nigerian actors and actresses revived the industry but this has since declined as well, affecting the Ghanaian market.

The revival according to him, happened when some Nigerian producers left their home country to Ghana following a ban on movie production in Nigeria. The Ghanaian Nigerian collaborations then caused a bang in the Ghanaian movie industry but the Nigerian producers left in the early 2000s after they were asked by Ghanaian authorities to pay ‘outrageous’ levies for producing movies.

But Ghanaian musician turned movie director Kobby of Rana fame disagrees. He argued that Ghana has equally good directors but says film making is team work and hiring Nigerian film producers to produce movies was meant to raise the quality.

‘If a Ghanaian producer together with Ghanaian actors decide to bring a Nigerian director, I don’t think anyone is feeding on the other or anyone is helping the other. It’s just collaborations’.

Recalling that the first Africa Academy Movie Awards had the Ghanaian movie ‘Run Baby Run’ directed by Emmanuel Apea of Revele Films win about six awards, Kobby says Ghana boasts of top quality productions which can compete on the continent and beyond.

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