“Our industry is audience demand” - Leila Djansi

The Chief Executive Officer of Turning Point Pictures Leila Djansi has stated categorically that the Ghanaian movie industry is audience demand, so it is sometimes difficult to come out with your innovations.

She made this statement at Golden Tulip some weeks back.

Now, whether Leila Djansi is making a valid statement about the movie industry or not is another thing for discussion next time because some movie producers do not see anything wrong in using the hottest or popular actor or actress especially on their posters.

They have the belief that it is only the popular face who can market the movie better and not an actor who is new or good.

In all these discussions, there are some negativity in making the movie industry audience demand. What it means is that, new faces and actors will find it difficult in breaking through the movie industry because you will not even be given the chance to showcase what you have.

On the other hand, this development has the tendency of killing talents as one person will repeatedly be used until he or she will not be needed anymore, or fans will be fed up with what he does.

Again, this idea of obeying the audience demand also puts undue pressure on the actors, and that is when they begin putting out some directives to support their desire to claim all the money coming to them.

To overcome this malady, we suggest the movie producers should come to terms with the Actors Guild of Ghana and Opera Square to come up with ways of introducing new faces into the industry any time a movie is coming out.

Analyzing Leila`s statement and the context in which she put it, it is clear that Leila does not like the idea of the public determining who should feature in the movie and not a producer or the directors.

When given the chance, Leila might not allow such things to happen in the industry because she thinks it is not a good practice and won't augur well for the movie industry.

In real terms, who should determine which actor or actress be featured in a movie? Why don't we give that task to the professionals including the director, the producer with just an advice from the people who are on the market and can give feedback on what the buyers say?