Movies: are there no new actors in Ghana?

The Head of Marketing at Multichoice Ghana Ms Afua Kissi-Nyame has revealed the feedback the company gets from customers when it comes to Ghanaian content. She said the customers often ask them why they show different movies with the same actors and actresses, wondering if filmmakers cannot use different actors.

According to Ms Kissi-Nyame, based on the feedback from the people who pay to watch the content, it is the right time for Ghanaian filmmakers to start revising their notes and begin to use new faces for their content. She said the constant use of the same faces makes marketing Ghanaian content difficult.

“When it comes to marketing Ghanaian films, I think it’s about the acts we use. We get feedback from people saying ‘We are always seeing the same faces. Why don’t you change the actors and why are you showing this programme and it is the same cast on the next show?'”

She said it becomes tough for Multichoice to market Ghanaian films as the customers expect to see fresh faces but do not get that because the filmmakers keep using the same cast.

“There’s always that feedback from our customers when it comes to Ghanaian film productions and from our side, it is very challenging since the customers are expecting that we bring them fresh content and fresh faces,” she revealed.

Ms Kissi-Nyame speaking on the challenges facing the film industry said there was not enough support from the industry players for their own content. She said via Graphic that “even though we get very good content coming through, we don’t get support from people from the industry promoting it. The players themselves are not pushing hard for their own content.”

According to her, “There seem to be lots of competition rather so when there’s a new movie, you will expect that everybody will jump and push it because word of mouth is very strong…but that doesn’t happen.

“And mostly for the actors, it is more about the paycheck so they are kind of removed from what they are part of. If collectively we can decide to push our content, it will grow at a speed that will surprise everybody.”

Miss Kissi-Nyame who was speaking at the Graphic Showbiz Forum said, “For us, our main key is to keep the industry going when there’s new content. It is something that keeps people on our channel and products.”

She added that despite their being in business as a result of the existence of content, Ghanaians sometimes feel they are biased. She, however, said there is nothing preferential at their place as they are more concerned about showing content than favouring the persons who own the content.

“Whenever we show Ghanaian productions, there’s this thing of people coming to say we, at MultiChoice, give preferential treatment to certain people but that’s never true.”