Director of the Creative Arts Council and National Commission on Culture, Socrate Safo has revealed the cause of the downfall of the Ghanaian movie industry.
According to him the movie industry lost its lucrative nature due to the foolishness of the younger crop of movie producers.
Speaking in an interview on Happy98.9FM’s ‘Showbiz Xtra’, with Doctar Cann, the Filmaker said, ” Foolishness destroyed the lucrativness of the industry. When you advise the young ones not to tow a path you know leads to destruction, they disregard it and repeat your mistakes”.
He explained that the advise given to the young crop of movie producers were not adhered to, because they thought the more experienced ones were greedy and selfish. “When we were actually interested in the survival of the industry”, he said.
On his authority, the younger producers sending movies to TV stations to air and not showing them in cinemas collapsed the industry.
He stated, “We have our own people being so interested in dealing with the TV stations and when you advise them, they think you’re selfish and don’t want them to progress”.
The industry veteran noted that Ghanaians always want to satisfy the senses of the eye. And when they are deprived of the movies on the various TV stations, they will be forced to buy tickets to the cinemas to watch the same movies aired freely on TV.
He expressed that one of the difficult things to do is trying to shape people who are not ready to listen. “These young producers do not listen to advice and are quite happy of seeing their movies on TV. It seems that is their interest”.
Socrate Safo appealed to movie producers to come together and only satisfy the Ghanaian populace in cinemas through aggresive promotion.
By: Joel Sanco