Entertainment of Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Source: News-One

Leila Djansi Threatens To Sue Film Distributors

Ghanaian filmmaker of international repute Leila Djansi has threatened to go to court to seek redress in an issue involving her and Distributors Guild of Ghana, a body responsible for film distribution in Ghana.

The body has allegedly stopped its member, Abdul Salam, producer and CEO of Venus Film, who is about to distribute Leila Djansi’s ‘Ties That Bind’, from releasing the film.

Last week, the group allegedly cautioned its members not to work with Leila, a mafia style move which is known by Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG). The group is fighting Leila Djansi because of a certain comment she made about working with one of the members of the group and her opinion about distribution in Ghana.

Leila allegedly lost a huge amount of money to one of the guild’s members, and made a comment on it on Facebook. For Leila, she was exercising her constitutional right, the freedom to express herself against treatment being meted out to her and her business through underhand tactics.

The group said Leila should render an unqualified apology to them before they would allow her to distribute the film through its channels.

Leila told Peace FM’s Entertainment Review on Saturday that she had already sold the film to Abdul Salam and had taken her money. Also, she said she could have distributed the film via an independent channel.

But for the sake of Abdul Salam who had already paid for the film, she had sent the group a written apology, which copy NEWS-ONE has intercepted.

She added that they will seek redress in a court of law if the distributors refused to allow Abdul to release the film. Meanwhile, Leila said she didn’t consider her comment on how she was treated by the group’s member and her views on the entire system as an insult.

NEWS-ONE had published the comment and review before and will repeat it sometime this week. The paper will also publish the apology letter.