So last week, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Okyere-Darko put himself on the chopping board to be sliced into pieces by Ghanaian actors and actresses when he passed an unfortunate comment about the deplorable state of the Ghanaian movie industry, juxtaposed that of Hollywood.
The famous politician, in a Facebook post expressed his disappointment in the industry, saying that the sector has failed to impact positively on the country’s development agenda.
Mr Okyere Darko made his evaluation using the US movie industry, Hollywood, as a yardstick and challenged stakeholders in the creative industry to explore ventures that would tie into government’s mantra of moving the country beyond aid.
He wrote:
“I took my time to watch randomly ten Ghanaian movies and never felt so disappointed. It brought home to me one major deficiency in our development.
The apparent lack of deliberate consciousness on the part of the creative industry in the development conversation. The presence of the creative industry appears at best peripheral in Ghana’s development narrative.
Our movies, our songs, our arts, by and large, do not impactfully plug into a greater development agenda.
Hollywood, for the best part of a century, has been deliberately used by America to push successfully American cultural “supremacy” agenda; it has been used as an effective instrument of military or economic indoctrination.
But, what has been the underlying consciousness behind our creative industry, if any?
What role, for instance, can actors in the creative industry play to define and realize this whole important concept of moving Ghana Beyond Aid? We must elevate consciousness in Ghana if we are serious about winning.”
His sentiment triggered a mass reaction from some players and stakeholders of the industry who called him out for his apparent ignorance and misguided comments.
Indeed our movie industry is in dire state and one might think the actors/actresses were emotional in their attacks aimed at Mr Okyere-Darko instead of drawing out the core element of his speech and working around it.
However Mr Gabby failed to tackle the fundamental cause of this canker but only found it convenient to compare two movie industries who are separated by a gulf of distinctive difference.
The government has never been supportive of the creative from day one and this led to the gradual deterioration of the sector, yet Mr Okyere-Darko is here comparing it to Hollywood.
There’s a a film school called Ghallywood African Film Village which was established in 2005 by William Awuku Akuffo to train persons interested in film-making.
As we speak now, the facility located off the Tema-Aflao road at Dawa in the Greater Accra Region is almost at the point of ‘death’ with no assistance from successive government to revive it.
The structure looked abandoned; some parts of the roof of the school’s summer hut looks almost like it’s been ripped off, with grass taking over major part of the once beautiful environment.
It might interest you to note that this Ghallywood African Film Village nurtured the likes of Majid Michel, Akumaa Mama Zimbi, Anita Owusu, Kisa Gbekle and several others.
How can there be sustainability when a facility meant to equip people with the requisite and knowledge of film-making and everything that goes with is left to rot right under our nose?
We went digging and we got some photos to buttress what we are saying (find it beneath this article).
Certainly, Mr. Gabby Okyere-Darko needs to use his influence to lobby government to take a second a look at the industry so the necessary logistics and resources are channeled into the sector rather sit on Facebook and spew garbage.
See below;
Source: ghgossip.com || By: Gabs || Email: gabstta@gmail.com