Ghanaians deserve better movie - Kwaw Ansah

Kwaw Ansah

VETERAN filmmaker Kwaw Ansah has added his voice to discussions about the dwindling fortunes of the local film industry saying Ghanaians deserve better movies than they are currently being served with.

In an exclusive interview with Graphic Showbiz at his East Legon residence on Wednesday, February 26, Kwaw Ansah said the current crop of filmmakers are in a hurry to make money.

“The people are in a hurry to make money, they have not learnt how to tell relevant stories. At the end of the day, you see one film and you don’t want to see another,” he said.

Kwaw Ansah, who is obviously not happy with the current situation said he could not be happy because people could do better.

“Ghanaians deserve better so I do not see why people do not want to do the right thing. Stories can make and unmake so we must always strive to tell relevant stories,” he stated.

Asked what he would do if given the power the change the situation, Kwaw Ansah said after he shot Love Brewed In The African Pot, Heritage Africa and others, he realised that Ghana did not have a film policy.

“Myself and others lobbied government to bring a film bill to protect our films. We started before the Nigerians who used to come over to pick crew to shoot and came back to do editing.

“We knew Nigerians could be aggressive marketers and they could boot us out so we wanted the film bill. The film authority has been inaugurated and the executives have been selected. With this film bill, there could be seed money given filmmakers to be guided to come out with good films.

“We do hope the atmosphere will change, the young filmmakers will realise the importance of movies as a tool, there is no tool more powerful than the audio-visual.

"Americans built their country mostly on Hollywood, we must not belittle the importance of this very powerful tool. When we are approaching it, we have to do it in its right sense,” he stressed.

Giving his thoughts on the current crop of actors, Kwaw Ansah said it was beauty that was doing the trick these days.

“These days, every beautiful faced man or woman can be an actor. You could see a man or woman who is not attractive but his manner of telling stories is great. Being beautiful does not make you an automatic actor.”

Does he have plans of going back to film production? “I have quite a number of scripts available and I wouldn’t mind but for my health challenges. I may be old but I am still young when it comes to this industry. I hope God will add a few more years so I can contribute to this industry,” he said with a broad smile.



Published on Graphic NewsPlus App
Story by Jayne Buckman-Owoo & Richmond Nyarko 
Date of publication; 27th Feb. 2020