Filmmakers call on government to fulfill promise of building a theatre in Tamale and other regional capitals

Film-makers in the Northern Region have called on government to fulfill its promise of establishing a theatre in Tamale and other regionals across the country.

According to them, this will help film-makers in marketing their productions by premiering their films in the cinemas.

Veteran actor and president of the Northern Drama and Film-makers Association (NORDRAFILM), Ahmed Saani told the press in Tamale.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in its manifesto for the tourism and creative sector ahead of the 2016 elections promised to build nine theatres in nine regions of the country. It also promised to pass the Creative Arts Bills.
This was going to form part of efforts to support the regulation and growth of the Ghana film industry.

Even though the government oversaw the establishment of the National Film Authority, it is yet to build a single cinema, more than six years into its administration.

Saani said the establishment of the theatres or cinemas would go a long way to help the movie industry sell their movies, noting that, the absence of such infrastructure now is a major challenge.

He said "right now when you produce a movie, you don’t know how to market it, you don’t know how to showcase it, let alone to benefit. So if the government could put up cinemas in the Northern part for us, we can be premiering our movies. The premiere alone can also fetch us something, after the premiering
then we get some opportunities that can make us sell our movies very well”.

NORDRAFILM is the umbrella association of the various groups in the Dagbani movie industry, which is one of the country’s biggest and most vibrant movie industries.

Azali, a 2018 Ghanaian drama film which featured mainly Dagbani movie stars and directed by Kwabena Gyansah became the first ever Ghanaian entry for the Best International Feature Film when it was submitted for nomination at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Despite these positive gains made the president of NORDRAFILM said funding, among other challenges affected the growth of the industry.

“Here we don’t get exposure like those in the south, so, we have a lot of challenges. Challenges like logistics, locations and the biggest challenge which is the funding. So we want government and other private investors to invest heavily in our industry. That would make us achieve something” Saani
added.

The Chief Executive Officer of the National Film Authority, Juliet Yaa Asantewaa Asante whose institution organised a day’s capacity building workshop for film-makers in Tamale in the Northern Region said the authority was doing a lot to regulate and streamline the film industry to make it attractive to investors.

She said the Ghanaian film industry does not only tell the Ghanaian story but is also one of the sectors that generates more revenue into the country.

“We don’t realize that the film industry most importantly carries our stories, who we are and also it’s one of the sectors that brings the most money into Ghana” she said.

Juliet Yaa Asantewaa said as part of making the Ghanaian movie industry attractive to local and foreign investors, there was the need for the standardisation to ensure uniformity in the sector.

“As we set out to attract the world to come to Ghana to shoot, we need to make sure that our house is in order and part of what the National Film Authority is doing is how to make sure that our house is ready, so that the rest of the world can come to Ghana, shoot and then our stories can travel and then, more people would be interested to come and visit our country” she stressed.