Use new faces —Multichoice Ghana to GH filmmakers

THE Head of Marketing, Multichoice Ghana, Ms Afua Kissi-Nyame, is urging Ghanaian film producers to use new talents for their production.

Making a submission on the challenges of marketing Ghanaian movies as a panel member at the third edition of the Graphic Showbiz Forum held recently in Accra, Ms Kissi-Nyame said her outfit received regular feedback from customers about the use of the same faces for productions.

“When it comes to marketing Ghanaian films, I think it’s about the acts we use. We get feedback from people saying we are always seeing the same faces. Why don’t you change the actors and why are you showing this programme and it is the same cast on the next show?

“There’s always that feedback from our customers when it comes to Ghanaian film productions and from our side, it is very challenging since the customers are expecting that we bring them fresh content and fresh faces,” she said.

The third Graphic Showbiz forum held in conjunction with Multichoice Ghana on the theme, ‘Future of Ghana Movie Industry, Bright or Bleak?’ saw some industry players in the film sector holding relevant conversations on the state of Ghana’s movie industry and the way forward.

While mentioning some of the possible challenges that had derailed the growth of Ghana’s movie industry, Ms Kissi-Nyame listed the lack of support among the players in the film industry as a major contribution.

“We find that even though we get very good content coming through, we don’t get support from people from the industry promoting it. The players themselves are not pushing hard for their own content.

“There seems to be lots of competition rather so when there’s a new movie, you will expect that everybody will jump and push it because word of mouth is very strong. For example, ‘Have you seen Prince’s movie?’ but that doesn’t happen.

“And mostly for the actors, it is more about the paycheck so they are kind of removed from what they are part of. If collectively we can decide to push our content, it will grow at a speed that will surprise everybody,” she stated.

In March 2021, MultiChoice Ghana launched Akwaaba Magic as a channel to provide exciting Ghanaian shows, series and documentaries produced and directed by Ghanaians.

Since its establishment with the tagline, ‘Welcome Home’, Akwaaba Magic has promoted and shown many Ghanaian productions such as Dede’, Madam, To Have and to Hold and High Currency.

Afua pointed out that even though the goal of Akwaaba Magic had been focused on the promotion of Ghanaian productions, MultiChioice had rather been accused of supporting the works of some perceived favourites.

“For us, our main key is to keep the industry going when there’s new content. It is something that keeps people on our channel and products.

“But whenever we show Ghanaian productions, there’s this thing of people coming to say we, at MultiChoice, give preferential treatment to certain people but that’s never true,” she noted.