Why Do The Ghana Movie Awards Exist?

Let me put out this disclaimer that I haven’t watched a Ghanaian movie since 2013.

Haven’t said that, I really want an answer to this question: Why do the Ghana Movie Awards exist? I ask this question because to be totally honest, I don’t think most of the movies produced in Ghana are any good and so having an award show for average movies don’t really make sense to me.

Of course, you can say I’m being unfair because I haven’t watched many of them but honestly, I don’t hear anything great about these movies after they’re launched. Seriously, where’s all 5 star movie reviews for a Ghana movie? Where’s the high praise audience reaction to these movies? Where’s the movie trailers playing on my television to tell me that these movies exist?

It feels like some of these movie production studios put out a movie, hope it sells and then move on.

I watched “A Northern Affair” with John Dumelo and Joselyn Dumas. Here’s my review: It was bad. Bad script. One dimensional characters and some badly produced scenes. Seriously, there were scenes in the movie where you couldn’t hear the actors dialogue because the microphones were bad. And they were still put into the final production of the movie.

And guess what: That movie won Best Picture at the Ghana Movie Awards. Seriously, who watched that movie and thought, “this is a really good movie and deserves Best Picture”

And now there’s a controversy with this year’s movie awards concerning “Beasts Of No Nation”. That movie was nominated despite the fact that it was produced in the US and funded by Netflix. But for some reason, just because the movie’s location was based in Ghana and starred a child actor born in Ghana, some people thought it would OK to nominate that movie.

So basically they’re saying that any movie production filmed in Ghana can be nominated for a “Ghana” movie award?

Maybe my target is off. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about the Ghana Movie Awards and instead talk about the awful movie industry that produces some of these movies that slink into the award categories. That’s not to say that all Ghanaian produced movies are bad. There might be some gems in there but it just feels like most of them are bad.

When some of the actors and actresses win awards at the Ghana Movie Awards, do they feel like they’ve achieved something? Do the Ghana Movie Awards seem credible to them?

I feel like a Ghanaian movie being accepted into the Sundance Film Festival would feel more like an achievement than winning a Ghana Movie award, to be honest

Seriously, can you take these awards seriously when you see the marketing effort behind them? All I’m saying is that they don’t make sense.

I think when your own actors like Yvonne Nelson and Juliet Ibrahim are questioning the credibility of your award shows, you might have a problem.

So again, I ask the question: Why do the Ghana Movie Awards exist if people don’t really care about the movies produced here? Especially if some of these movies nominated aren’t really good and are borderline one dimensional.

I feel bad for some of the actors and actresses and producers who are actually good at their job and don’t get the credit they deserve because they’re are tossed in with the “Ghanaian” movie crowd.

Until someone tells me that there’s a great Ghanaian movie out there that I need to watch because it might change my perception, I’m not seeing any of them. A Ghana Movie Award nomination can’t change my mind. So what’s the point of it…