Though the on going world cup was able to seize some of the entertainment activities in the country, one area which was able to stand the heat and the tension was the movie industry which is even seeing many new entrants.
Whiles the black stars were on the field sweating it out and missing all the good penalties, the producers and directors were doing cut and roll over. It is hoped that after the world cup, many new movies will come to the market.
Besides the booming nature of the movie industry lately, one directive from the Deputy Minister of Information Hon. James Agyenim Boateng has it that foreign movie makers should get permit from the producers before they will be allowed to shoot their movie here in Ghana. This veto power has been given to the film producers and the way they are going about it is just beyond the understanding of the crew members who work with these producers, mainly Nigerians.
According to them, they do not have any problem with the minister`s directives for the foreign producers to get permit but the way the law is being enforced by the producers is their problem. These crew members believe the movie producers also give them their daily bread when they go on location with them. In an interview with the leader of the crew members who gave his name as Enoch, he had this message for the minister and his associates.
“One instance was when I was on set with some Nigerian producers when the monitors came demanding for our permit. They will not even wait for any explanation from us, before we knew they started struggling with us to take away our equipments that we were working with. Is this how they are supposed to operate. How do they also expect us to survive” he told this paper.
“We have had many Nigerian producers like Andy Best who come to shoot movies here in Ghana. At the moment, the producer I am working with is a Ghanaian and the amount of money they were asking the Nigerian producer to pay is just too outrageous. How can you ask them to pay $5000. Have they forgotten that most of our movie stars also work in Nigeria without working permit and now that I know about the law, we will just ask them to go for shooting permit before we work with them” he told this paper.
One film director/editor who gave his name as Samuel also added his voice to this conversation. He said that the idea of the film producers entreating the Nigerian film producers to pay their shooting permit is a nice idea but he believes that the Ghanaian producers and the government are not treating the Nigerians well and are not really thinking about the crew members either.
“Now the Nigerians have taken Ghana to be the best shooting place and we have the right to ask them for a shooting permit but for us to be asking them to pay $5000 tells us that they don’t even want the Nigerians to shoot in Ghana again. We can talk about those who come from Europe, they are different from the Nigerians and their economy is far better to the extent that when they are paying $5000, they will not really feel it like the Nigerians” he added.
“How many producers do we have in Ghana and at the end of the day how much do they pay us. We end up doing all the foolish work on set and at the end of the day they take all the money into their pockets. But with the Nigerians, they treat the crew members well and they make sure they pay us the money that they are supposed to pay us, therefore if the Government is enforcing this law on the Nigerians then that means they want to make the crew members, directors and the movie stars unemployed” he hinted.
Meanwhile Socrates Safo who represented the film producers in the operation revealed to us that this is not a new law. It`s a law that has been in existence for a very long time. He continued that it is just that the systems were not in place and since they are now on the grounds, the minister has asked them to check and to make sure that foreigners don’t abuse that law.
“I can`t just take my camera and go outside Ghana to shoot a movie. What if some one comes here to shoot something bad about Ghana and goes to his country to sell it. Even in some countries after shooting, you have to take it to the authorities to see to it that you don’t go out to portray wrong stuffs about their country” Socrates revealed.
“We are not doing this against the Nigerians but what we are asking them to do is to pass through the right channel. Just recently one Nigerian producer had to rent a big hotel to shoot a movie and after that went back to his country without paying. That ended up adding to the bills of the film producers. So if we have to check and to make sure the laws are being applied well, I think this will not happen again” he added.
