Telenovelas killing Nollywood too – Patience Ozokwor

Veteran Nollywood actress, Patience Ozokwor, has disclosed that the influx of telenovelas in Ghana is same in Nigeria.

For some time now there has been conversations on the influx of Telenovelas on Ghanaian screens which led Ghanaian actors to demonstrate against the situation in Kumasi and proceeded to submit a petition to Otumfuor Osei Tutu II.

Evangelist Patience Ozokwor who was in Ghana for a conference at the Precious Seed Chapel in Tema, said the movie market is now open to series and episodes which the Telenovelas are showing to their audience.

She encouraged African movie producers to adopt the style of showing episodes and series since that’s what seems to be the niche now.

‘‘We have the same problem with Zee World and Telemundo. It’s really eating into the industry…what it means is that we are facing challenges and so now, we need to do something that will make our people come back to us. You can’t force them because it’s a market; everybody goes for what they want. We need to also find out why they have thrown our own away,’’ she said.

The Nollywood movie legend continued; ‘‘one thing I have personally observed is that these telenovelas are telling serial stories. If you watch it, you would want to watch the next episode so people are usually eager to watch what will eventually happen to this character. So if that’s what people want, we start doing it for them. We need to tell serious-minded stories…they (telenovela characters) don’t act well. Their costuming is even wrong. What they criticize us for is exactly what they are doing. So why are people dropping us and watching what they are criticizing? For example, you can see someone who goes to bed fully made up and in a flashy dress and wakes up and still runs around with that. It makes me wonder why people are not talking about that. That means people are not watching those things; they are actually only interested in the storyline.’

‘I want to encourage Ghanaians to keep doing what they are doing …those who love our movies will keep buying them,’ she said.