‘GHANA TELEVISION CHANNELS KILLED OUR FILM INDUSTRY’ – Actress And Producer, Selassie Ibrahim

Ghanaian actress and film producer Selassie Ibrahim has blasted local television stations, bluntly blaming them for the downfall of Ghana’s flourishing film industry, sometimes termed “Ghallywood”.

Speaking passionately during an interview on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, Ibrahim said that the channels emphasise cheap imported content above high-quality local productions, rendering the business model for Ghanaian filmmakers untenable.

In contrast to the much-welcomed influx of international films, Selassie Ibrahim, a prominent player in the business for decades, lamented the lack of assistance and the low acquisition fees provided to Ghanaian producers.

“Look, the TV channels are not helping us. I’ll say it again. I don’t care what they think. I don’t care what they say. I’ve said it before and they bashed me. But you know what? I will still keep saying it until they help us.”

She underlined the large difference between production costs and purchase fees, suggesting that local channels purposefully force companies into debt:

“You shoot content and send it to TV channels; they look into your eyes and tell you a thousand Ghana cedis [GH₵1,000] when I spent over $20,000 to $30,000.”

The producer pointed out the irony that local channels often prioritise old, amortised foreign content over brand-new Ghanaian productions.

“Yet they go and buy movies that are 10 years old that had made their money out of cinema and everything.”

She questioned the economic logic of this practice and accused the channels of wilfully destroying the indigenous creative economy:

“You want us to sell it to you the same? Do you want to collapse [our businesses]? You’ve done it. You see the problem? When people say that, ‘oh, Ghanaian film is dead,’ my heart bleeds, but how many people can you explain to that it started from the TV channels because they killed our industry?”

NKONKONSA.com