Mike Ocquaye Jnr., Ghana’s High Commissioner to India, made this revelation at the premiere of Indian stage play ‘Niyati’ last weekend at the National Theatre.

The High Commissioner told JoyNews that the two countries have agreed to have a work relationship for their film industries.

“The Americans have done it with Hollywood. The Nigerians have done it with Nollywood but the Indian film industry is the biggest in the world…At the moment the Ghana film industry has signed an MoU with a section of the Indian film industry,” he said.

Mike Ocquaye Jnr added that the new friendship will be of a great help to the Ghanaian movie industry.

“For example, the first thing they proposed is that the Indians will come here with their production crew to come and film some of their movies in Ghana,” he stated.

“They will come and spend money in our hotels. They will spend money in terms of food. Use the carpenters here to build the stage,” Mr. Ocquaye added.

The Indian movie industry has recently gained much visibility in Ghana following the showing of one their telenovelas ‘Kumkum Bhagya,’ ‘Veera,’ and others on some Ghanaian television stations.

These telenovelas have garnered huge viewership in the country even though some have detested their introduction onto Ghanaian television.

A few months ago, some Kumawood film makers petitioned the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to help them fight the influx of telenovelas in Ghana.

According to them, these telenovelas are depleting the Ghanaian culture and reducing sales of Ghanaian movies.

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By: Kwame Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana, India film industries sign MoU appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

We choose which situations suit us at a particular time and behave as saintly creatures when we share opposing views to things we detest. Most of the Kumawood actors who demonstrated against the influx of telenovelas on Ghanaian television are hypocrites.

It is true that we are having too many telenovellas on Ghanaian television at the expense of our movies. It is true that most Ghanaian movie producers are not able to do a lot of productions of late because of the recent hiccups of the film industry.

It started with the English-language movies; they suddenly atrophied and got virtually missing on the scene. Now the Kumawood ‘industry’, which has the biggest market and was doing very well even when their English counterparts were down, is also saying telenovellas dubbed into Twi are taking people’s attention from them.

The Petition to Otumfuo

On Thursday, 14^th September, 2017, some movie makers in Kumasi embarked on a demonstration against the proliferation of telenovellas in Ghana.

They ended their demonstration with a petition to the Asantehene Otomfuo Osei Tutu II.

They were concerned about the fact that the telenovellas are dubbed in the Twi language. According to them, a foreigner ‘speaking’ Twi has the propensity to corrupt0 the Ghanaian culture. How?

I agree with the fact that these telenovellas are becoming too many on our screens but the Twi-dubbing argument does not make a whit of sense. It is positive for an Indian to ‘speak’ Twi in an Indian movie than to speak an Indian language. It tells the ‘ignorant’ film watcher that “someone from another country can speak my language, so I should also be proud of it”

Did they exhaust all avenues?

I find their petition to Otumfuo quite problematic. They have explained that Otumfuo is a custodian of Ashanti culture, hence they wanted him to add his voice to the matter but I believe they could have petitioned the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Creative Arts Council too or the National Commission on Culture.

I wonder if the petition to Otumfuo will yield any positive results. Nana has appointed a team to meet the leadership of the Film Produces Association of Ghana but I am quite pessimistic about the outcome.

Legislation

They also mentioned the passage of the Broadcasting Law. I think that is a good call. In fact, stakeholders of the industry have trumpeted this call for a long time and it is hoped that when passed, there will be strict regulation of the amount of foreign content that must appear on radio and television. If that 70% local content as against 30% foreign content should work, we may be making headway.

It is also hoped that the Legal Instrument for the Film Act will also be put in place to ‘operationalise’ it.

…but these actors are being hypocritical

I have personally seen a lot of actors on Kumkum Bhagya before. They go there to discuss episodes and scenes of the movie. Nana Ama McBrown has been there before. Lilwin, Emelia Brobbey, Yaw Dabo, John Dumelo, Majid Michel and lot of Ghanaian actors have been on that show.

I agree that sometimes some of these actors are put on ‘Kumkum Bhagya’ show on Adom TV to plug their events because that is their flagship programme for the station but if they truly resent telenovellas as they portrayed in their demonstration, they would not accept to be on, let alone join the discussions.

Conclusion

Consistency is key in advancing causes like this. You can’t go sit on ‘Kumkum Bhagya,’ advertise your programme on it, discuss the movie like you wrote the story and later come tell us that “yɛɛgye y’adeɛ.”

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By: Kwame Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post When Kumawood actors hypocritically grace the sets of ‘Kumkum Bhagya’ [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.