“If a film is good, it will travel” – James Gardiner

Ghanaian actor and Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Film Authority (NFA), James Gardiner, says the country’s population size should not be the main factor in assessing the commercial success of its films.

According to him, local audience support and attention to the entire production process are more important in helping Ghanaian films succeed.

He made the remarks in an interview with Joy FM’s arts and culture journalist Kwame Dadzie on Showbiz A-Z.

“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.

James said he did not want Ghanaians to focus on population size when discussing the commercial success of films.

“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.

“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. We are watching a Ghana film and you are hearing a lot of noise about it, you watching to find out the faults instead of actually appreciating the work that is being done,” he said.

James maintained that there were many good Ghanaian films that deserved greater support from local audiences.

Actress Yvonne Okoro, who also appeared on the programme, said Ghanaian film producers were doing their best to sustain their businesses, but local audiences often focused on finding faults with their work rather than supporting their productions.

According to her, Ghanaians were willing to watch and enjoy films from other countries, even when the productions were of poor quality, but were more critical of similar films made by their compatriots.

The NFA has been pursuing initiatives to strengthen Ghana’s film industry, including the Film Development Fund, which is intended to support areas such as 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.