Ghanaian movie producer David Owusu has said there is no movie industry in Ghana called ‘Kumawood’.
According to him, calling Ghana’s Twi movie industry Kumawood is a misnomer.
He said Kumawood is somebody’s private business and that Ghanaians, including movie stakeholders, need to be educated as such.
“There is nothing like Kumawood. We don’t have an industry called Kumawood. Kumawood is a company name by one person—Sam Darko. It is his company name and people decided to give the name to movies made in Kumasi or movies made in Akan or Twi languages.
“The Twi movie industry is not called Kumawood. I am very sure about this and you can enquire from gurus in the Twi movie industry. There is nothing like Kumawood movie industry. It is also an award ceremony,” he said.
David is the CEO of Media5 Promotion established in 2006. He has produced a lot of movies including Deadly Obsession, Yvonne Nelson’s Tears, Die With Me, Odo Carpenter, Big Boy Wizzy, Handsome Paddies, Brago, and Armageddon among others. He is currently one of the forces to reckon with in Ghana’s movie industry.
He was speaking to NEWS-ONE in an exclusive interview about the division among Ghana’s filmmakers over the passing of Ghana’s film bill when he made the Kumawood clarification.
“It is about time the major players in the industry, like Akwesi Nyamekye, Jones Agyemang, Jackson K. Bentum, Paul G and the rest, who are doing so well in the Twi movie industry, agreed on a common name for the industry and let people know. Perhaps there is a name that we don’t know about but Kumawood is not an industry.”
On the film bill, David Owusu said it was a good decision to regulate the movie industry but if some groups in the industry were having issues with the content of the bill, it was prudent to hold on and listen to their concerns and deal with them before passing the bill.
“I am thinking it shouldn’t be passed. We should rather look into it; …the problem thereof should be settled first, else when it is passed, there will be problems in the industry. Once there is a misunderstanding over it, it shouldn’t be passed. We should rather come together and look into it very well. If everyone is satisfied and a consensus is reached, then government can go ahead and pass it into law.”
The film bill has been before Parliament for a very long time. Socrates Sarfo and other producers have pressurised current and past governments to pass the bill into law to no avail.
However, some persons are arguing that times have changed and so industry players should go back to the drawing table and modify the content of the bill, an opinion David also shares.
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