The President of the Film Directors Guild of Ghana (FDGG), Mr Richard Yaw Boateng, has appealed to government to construct new state-of-the-art cinemas to enable movie producers’ recoup their investments.
He said it would not cost the government more than one million dollars to construct one cinema in the sixteen regional capitals of the country.
“We cannot showcase our tourism without investing in Ghanaian films, because the Ghanaian films talk about us, what we do and what the country intends to promote.”
“Ghana has no cinemas where producers can show their local content to the public, the private cinemas which are also expensive to lease, have less capacity and are not more than three in the country,” Mr Boateng said this yesterday in Accra, during the Ghana International Film Summit 2021.
It was on the theme; “Instituting continental integration for holistic development of Ghana and Africa film industry.”
Participants discussed the problems facing movie producers, and as well as how find amicable solutions that will revamp the movie industry.
Mr Boateng said, the construction of these cinemas would also generate revenue and bridge the unemployment gap in the country.
He said currently, movie producers were no more producing movies which portray Ghanaian culture, whilst others had also ventured into other investments which are more profitable.
Anytime our leaders travel outside for summits, they fail to encourage investors to come put resources into the creative businesses,” he said.
Present at the summit were Board Chairman of National Film Authority, Mr David Dontoh, President of Directors Guild of Nigeria, Mr Victor Okhai and Former Chief Executive of MultiChoice Ghana Limited, Mr Cecil Sunkwa-Mills among others.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
