Unite or die – Leila Djansi

Ghanaian filmmaker of international repute, Leila Djansi, has said the future of Ghana’s movie industry depends on unity among stakeholders.

According to her, the only way to grow the industry is for stakeholders to be united and also make the right priorities.

However, she told Accra-based Hitz FM that there seems to be no hope because stakeholders are currently divided.

She said everyone wants to be the big ‘fish’ or the boss of the industry, hence they do things to one another which at the end negatively affect the industry.

“The industry needs to present a united front to actors, guilds and everywhere. The industry needs to present united front but that is not happening. Also for me, I think priorities are wrong. People are all about the red carpet. You have an actor on set who is going to play a village boy and they want to speak with American accent. The priorities are wrong. People are thinking about the red carpets and image they want to project to the public so they can get a few likes on Instagram and Facebook. That is not what filmmaking is about. Filmmaking is a business and you have to take it seriously as a doctor going into surgery or a teacher going into the classroom or soldier going to war. That is how you treat your craft or approach the job of filmmaking…you are putting in huge money and you expect huge money out,” she said.

“When we put focus on these two things: priority and unity, I think things will get much better,” Leila Djansi added.

Leila thinks it is about high time stakeholders looked beyond personal gains and think about the progress of the industry.