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Ghanaian actor Ekow Smith Asante has said the movie industry in the country is taking a nosedive because it lacks the relevant structures.

“We don’t need anything but the structures. We don’t have a single structure,” he told DJ Premier on Entertainment Capital on Accra 100.5fm.

“I think we have been left to our fate. If I see you and you tell me: ‘I have a little money, let us see if we can shoot a movie’, that’s all. Whether the story line is good or bad, whether it can influence someone, we don’t really think about that,” he stated.

According to him, most producers only focus on the business part of the art and how to make quick profit.

“Most of the things we are doing, everybody thinks it’s business, so, if I invest GHS100,000, how many months can I make like GHS150,000, and they calculate: ‘If we shoot for two weeks and edit in a week, so, within a month or two I should have my money.’ So, everybody is looking at the money aspect and not the art,” he noted.

Asante pointed out that the movie Beast of No Nation swept most of the awards at the last Ghana Movie Awards (GMAs) because it was a high-budget movie. “It was on point,” he added.

In his opinion, there is money in the industry to support actors and movie makers, but the structures are not there to assist in that direction.

“Because we are left on our own that is why we think there is no money, but when you go deep there is money. If we have the structures we can release the money, but everybody wants to form an association of his own, so who do we give the money to? …We need the structures. Without a structure, no matter how we go about it, we cannot make it,” insisted Asante, who suggested that government should intervene to help grow the industry.

“Government should play a key role in it. If you leave it to us, we will mess it up. But if we have rules and regulations [and] we have structures…there should be somebody, a skilled person, who knows exactly what goes into a movie production at the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Creative Arts to help actors and movie makers.

“There should be a help desk there; there should be a fund there that if you go through the structures you can access the funds. Otherwise, everybody will write a script that will be shot in one bedroom, or under a tree, or a village somewhere without permission,” he advised.