Movie Awards at crossroads
As he has been doing over the past couple of years, Mr Fred Nuamah, founder of the Ghana Music Awards may be currently enjoying taking red-carpet photos at the Cannes Film Festival in France. But he may return soon to Accra to find that his own movie awards carpet has been yanked from under his feet.
Advertisement
Two major stakeholders, the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG) and the Ghana Actors Guild have expressed their unwillingness to continue supporting the annual event which is in its fourth year.
The president of FIPAG, Mr Hackman Asare, is quoted by GhanaCelebrities as saying that, members of the association would no longer participate in the awards scheme. The boycott meant that FIPAG members would not send their movies for nomination.
“We shall be organising our own film awards”, Hackman said. “We are still working on the modalities …we shall surely organise our own awards, that I assure you”.
Members of FIPAG that GhanaCelebrities spoke with alleged that Mr Fred Nuamah was “taking the image of Ghana’s movie industry for granted, he disrespects filmmakers by not involving them properly in the organisation, and also he organises the awards shabbily.
A few days after the FIPAG boycott statement, the Ghana Actors Guild (GAG), through its President, Mr Odoi Mensah, said that the Actors Guild would have nothing to do with the Ghana Movie Awards.
Mr Odoi Mensah is quoted by Razz newspaper as saying the Guild took its position to boycott the movie awards much earlier, at the very onset of the awards because of many reservations.
“However, Fred Nuamah, founder of the Ghana Movie Awards pleaded with the Guild at that time to be given the opportunity to do things right. Contrary to what he pleaded for, Fred keeps repeating the same mistakes,” Odoi Mensah said.
The Ghana Movie Awards was founded in 2009 to provide a platform to award excellence and recognise those who work tirelessly to develop the movie industry in Ghana and Africa.