Ghanaian actor and Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Film Authority (NFA), James Gardiner, has urged Ghanaians to support locally produced films, arguing that the country’s population size should not be the primary measure of their commercial potential.
He said audience support and attention to every stage of film production were more critical to building a successful and sustainable Ghanaian film industry.
Gardiner made the remarks in an interview with Joy FM’s arts and culture journalist, Kwame Dadzie, on Showbiz A-Z.
He stressed that efforts to create an enabling environment for producers and other industry stakeholders would yield limited results without a strong local audience willing to support their work.
“We can do all the work. We can make sure that we create an enabling environment for all our stakeholders, producers and what not. It can be as vibrant as it should be. But if we don’t have that support system backing us, it’s not going to work,” he said.
Gardiner urged industry players and audiences to look beyond population figures when assessing the commercial prospects of Ghanaian films, insisting that quality productions could find audiences beyond their country of origin.
“If a film is good, it will travel. When a film is good, forget the numbers, it will travel but it still plays a key role,” he stated.
He also criticised what he described as a tendency among some Ghanaian audiences to favour foreign productions while subjecting local films to excessive criticism.
According to him, some viewers approach Ghanaian films with the intention of identifying flaws rather than appreciating the work that goes into making them.
“You know, if we leave our very own and then we throw our weight behind the foreign stuff, it’s like we have placed very little value on our own. We make excuses for the foreign stuff and we are so critical, judgemental and so hard on our very own, we don’t enjoy the movie like we should,” he said.
Gardiner maintained that Ghana had produced several good films that deserved greater recognition and support from local audiences.
Actress Yvonne Okoro, who also appeared on the programme, echoed his concerns, saying Ghanaian film producers were making efforts to sustain their businesses despite the challenges facing the industry.
She argued that local audiences often concentrated on finding faults with Ghanaian productions while readily watching and enjoying films from other countries, even when those productions were of poor quality.
Okoro said the disparity in how audiences judged local and foreign films could undermine the efforts of Ghanaian producers seeking to grow their businesses.
NFA initiatives to strengthen the film industry
The National Film Authority has been pursuing initiatives aimed at strengthening Ghana’s film industry, including the proposed Film Development Fund, which is intended to support film development, production, distribution, marketing, training and cinema infrastructure.
The Authority has also engaged industry stakeholders through the National Film Dialogue and supported efforts to expand film education and screenings across the country.
Gardiner’s comments highlight the importance of audience participation in these efforts, with local support seen as a key factor in helping Ghanaian filmmakers build sustainable businesses and expand the reach of their productions.
