Ghanaian actress Yvonne Okoro is calling on Africans, especially Ghanaians to desist from tagging local movies as “substandard” and rather promote local films, noting that there are Hollywood movies that are of a low standard, too.
“You can’t tell me that every Hollywood movie you have watched is nice”, she said, adding: “Some of them, with all the big names, [are] rubbish”, she told Nana Romeo on Accra100.5FM’s mid-morning show Ayekoo Ayekoo on Tuesday, 5 November 2019.
The 2010 Ghana Movie Awards Best Actress said the only way African movies can sell is when Africans decide to pay more attention to their own movies relative to foreign ones.
In her view, most people think all African movies are not up to scratch due to the bad experience they may have had watching one or two or purely based on hearsay.
Ms Okoro, one of the main casts of ‘Fix us’, a movie produced by fellow actress Yvonne Nelson and scheduled to be premiered at the Silverbird Cinema on 6 December 2019, further called on Ghanaians to change their attitude and support the industry.
“If the change will come, the change will come from you," she underscored.
There are more local movies out there that are nice and very educative, the actress said, emphasising: “Hollywood started from nowhere and now it's somewhere. Support your own so it also gets there".
Ms Okoro has featured in more than 30 movies and has been nominated for Africa Movie Awards Best Actress twice in a row – 2011 and 2012 – for her movies ‘Pool Party’ and ‘Single Six’.
Apart from the two Yvonne’s, the other notable names in ‘Fix Us’ are Tobi from Big Brother Nigeria, Michelle Attoh, Hajia4real, Irene Logan and Prince David Osei.