Ghana Movie Awards Fires Fred Nuamah

Organizers of the Ghallygold Awards which have now been changed to ‘Ghana Movie Awards’ (GMA), have fired ace music producer/manager and now actor Fred Nuamah, from being part of the upcoming event.

Mr. Rockson Adu Boahene, Chief Executive Officer of Item 3 House, organizers of the new Ghana Movie Awards, disclosed this to peacefmonline in an exclusive interview this morning.

According to him, Fred’s inclusion in the organization of the award will lead to a conflict of interest because he is an actor and part of the industry whose stars they wish to honour.

“He is a threat to the awards because he is an actor and he is also close to almost everybody in the industry. I know he even manages some of the actresses, so Fred Nuamah has nothing to do with the awards anymore,” Adu Boahene said.

Mr. Adu Boahene said Fred Nuamah went out of his way and informed the media about the change in the name of the awards whiles the issue was still under discussion and at the consultation level with stakeholders in the industry, a situation he said, does not augur well for the confidentiality of the event organisers.

Few weeks ago, Fred was named as a new partner to the organizers and the brain behind the rebranding of the award. The Ghana Movie Award which had been postponed on three different occasions will finally come off on September 4, 2010 at the National Theatre in Accra.

It was first slated for March 6, but was later postponed to May 8, 2010. Rockson told peacefmonline that the date for the event kept changing because of lack of funding and sponsorship.

“Sponsorship was a problem but thank God, we now have about four strong companies on board, and several others have also expressed interest. So definitely, after the World Cup it will happen”, he assured.

Mr. Adu Boahene explained that the name of the award was changed because of the controversy associated with the use of “Ghallywood” or “Ghallygold”, since they wanted a name which was very precise and self-explanatory.

So far, over 53 Ghanaian movies have been submitted for the award, and the deadline for entries is on June 18, 2010.

After the deadline, a Jury of seven including Professors, movie critics and gurus in the movie industry, will screen all the submitted movies and categorize them. In all, there are 25 categories and 5 honorary awards.

Mr. Rockson also disclosed that, the awards night will be covered live on Television, but stated that they are still in talks with the various TV stations to settle on whose offer is favourable them.

The Ghana Movie Awards is organized by Item 3 House in collaboration with the Film Producers Association of Ghana, under the auspices of the Ministry of Information.

It aims to honour hard working actors, actresses, producers, directors, writers, technical crew and all involved in the Ghanaian movie industry. The last time an industry awards re was organized in Ghana, was some four years ago, by the Ghana Actors Guild (GAG).