Shine light on women behind scenes —Akofa Edjeani

Quite a good number of people believe that filmmaking is a preserve of men and oftentimes overlook the vital role women play in the industry.

From time immemorial, women have played various roles in filmmaking excelling in the process.

Graphic Showbiz caught up with veteran actress Akofa Edjeani who gave her opinion on the situation.

Touching on women who play roles behind the scenes such as sound recordists, directors of photography, production managers, etc., Akofa opines that the media should throw more light on them.

 “If the media will talk more about what they do, it will go a long way to help because people don’t see those who work behind the camera. They only see those of us in front of it.

“A lot of people don’t even read the end credits to know if the editor was a female or the sound recordist was a woman so if we start putting the spotlight on them and highlighting them, that is one way to project them. They can also be talked about in schools when they are having career counseling so that they will know filmmaking is not a preserve for men,” she said.

Giving her views on the various guilds in the industry such as the Ghana Actors Guild, Screen Actors Guild, etc., Akofa stated: “We are all not as effective as we should be, I think that all the guilds can do much better than we are currently doing.

“We need to do more so it brings some sanity in the system and when we are properly organised, then we can make the demands that we need to.

“For instance, as it is now, we don’t have the star system where one can say this A-list actor is in the film and this renowned director is directing it so I am going to see it. We don’t have a system where an ace actor gets to be paid a certain amount. There are certain amounts A-list actors are paid and it should never be less than that. We also don’t even have the contract system so people act without contracts but the conversation is ongoing and I am sure all that will be sorted out,” she added.

Akofa is currently working on a play written by Latif Abubakar titled The Second Coming of Nkrumah, she stars in it and it is expected to be staged in March 2023.

She was recently given an honorary award at the Sotigui Awards in Burkina Faso for all the great work she has done over the past 35 years and for being an inspiration to actors all over Africa.