Betting On Love

A new television drama series will soon hit the Ghanaian television screens. It is a French production which has been translated into English language by the National Film and Television Institute.

The French Embassy donated a set of equipment to the National Film and Television Institute, NAFTI as part of their contribution to the school. The French Embassy has also brought to the country a resource person to facilitate the voice dubbing of the popular Ivorian movie titled Betting on Love.

Some of the renowned Ghanaian actors and actresses whose voices were dubbed on the francophone movie include, Brew Riverson, Ekow Smith, Fred Amugi and Gifty Nettey.

In an interview with the director of the dubbing section at NAFTI, Rebecca Ohene-Asah, she said, "this is a story most African communities can identify with, it brings out how money changes situations on this continent".

The storyline of the movie is an intriguing one, the movie starts with a young ambitious Ivorian called caroline working in the her salon, Caroline is engaged to an uptight man called Jean-Philipe who works in the civil service of his country.

Caroline and her engaged man are making plans to get married in two months. Suddenly, Caroline wins thousands of dollars from the national lottery and becomes so elated to the point she doesn't no what to do to herself; meanwhile her engaged fiancée knows nothing about Caroline staking the lotto, but finds out on television when Caroline is receiving her grand prize.

Caroline decides after winning the lottery to travel to France for shopping, she meets a man at the airport who was nice to her and also kept bothering her with conversation, the gentleman known as Armand Fouli succeeds in befriending Caroline by the time they arrived in Paris.

Caroline is met at the airport by her cousin's ex-wife, Lucy who is also instantly attracted to Armand Fouli's brother who comes to the airport to meet him. Armand takes Caroline, while his brother Guy takes Lucy.

Armand's brother finds out in the newspaper that Caroline was the one who won the grand prize in the lottery in Abidjan; Armand is motivated by that to go after Caroline. On the other hand, Caroline decides to end her relationship with Jean-Philipe, her engaged man in La Cote D'Voire so that she could start a new life in Paris with her new found lover, Armand. She breaks the news to her fiancée who obviously is broken-hearted after the telephone conversation with Caroline.

Caroline settles down with Armand, she buys a new house and lots of clothes. Her cousin, Lucy also gets on well with Armand's brother, Guy, Lucy and Guy get married in no time as Armand and Caroline continued their courtship.

Armand travels to Senegal to work on a project; whilst he is there; he meets the daughter of a wealthy minister in Senegal. Armand is instantly drawn to this sophisticated rich lady. They become lovers and working partners on a drama production. Armand travels back and forth to Senegal and France to be with his new found love. He even travels with Caroline at one point to Senegal, but Caroline did not know there was anything going on between Armand and the minister's daughter.

Armand gets married to this minister's daughter at one of the most expensive weddings in Senegal, Caroline only finds out through a magazine publication. She breaks down completely and decides to return to her old life in Abidjan. She bids goodbye to her cousin Lucy and returns to Abidjan.

Back home in Abidjan her fiancée who she dumped, Jeane-Philipe is willing to accept her back, Armand traces her to find her in Abidjan, he tries to coax her into believing that he still loves her but she had learnt her lesson and reunites with Jean-Philpe.

The story revolves around a typical modern day African setting, the acting is splendid and the flow of the story is also very consistent. In an interview with the resource person on this project, Mohamed Musulumi, he said, "this is a love story that can be told time and time again, it is good that Francophone countries and Anglophone countries will share ideas through movies and projects like this".