Steve Asare Hackman, president of the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG) says despite the difficulties facing the movie industry, he does not believe the industry will die anytime soon.
“I don’t believe that the movie industry will die any time soon. If you look at what is happening even in Kumasi right now, you will find out that a lot of producers are producing films every hour, everyday and every month. Based on that alone, I don’t think the industry will collapse,” Mr Hackman told NEWS-ONE.
Steve Hackman’s assertion was in response to a recent submission by movie producer Socrates Sarfo that Ghana’s movie industry will go down the drain sooner than later.
Socrates had stated: “An industry has been created to kill an industry. The movie industry has been sacrificed for free TV viewing and when the quality falls, which it will soon, the people won’t even want to watch it for free on TV anymore due to poor quality.”
But the FIPAG boss explained that the association has a regulation which prevents producers from giving their movies to TV stations unless it is two or more years old.
“When we came into office, what we did was that we came out with a regulation that new movies should not be given to TV stations unless after two years of exploitation – production, sales and distribution. But some producers still find their way to go give their new films to TV stations based upon the agreement they have with these stations. The executive of FIPAG is coming hard with a hammer so those who violate our rules and regulations will be dealt with.
“I think what we need to look at is the individual producers. If you produce a movie and you think that giving it to TV stations will help you to recoup your money, fine. But I think what we need to look at as producers is what we want. Because after production it goes to distribution, then to video sales, then it goes to pay per view TV unlike what we have in Ghana now, which is free per view TV. Producers are wide awake and I don’t think they will just give their movies to TV stations for free,” he said.
However, Mr Hackman was quick to add that FIPAG is an individual association and like the laws of the land say, people have the freedom of association.
“Our association is an individual one and as it stands in Ghana, there is freedom of association, so if you press it too hard, the person can decide not to be a member of the association. Sometimes we need to rub their shoulders and try to explain to them the reason why they are not supposed to do certain things. There are still some producers among us who do not give out their movies to the TV stations,” he added.
