Chairman of the governing board of the National Film Authority, David Dontoh, is lamenting the poor exhibition of Ghanaian culture in movies produced locally.
In an interview on Hitz FM, the veteran actor said that modern day films created in the country were falling short of telling the world about the Ghanaian identity.
“A larger portion of our films are portraying cultures that I will call popular culture or mainstream culture. We had old Ghana all the way to modern Ghana. But if you take the old and the new, you will still call something Ghana. We say culture is our way of life. If it is the way of life, what do we see in our films? In our natural ways of life, do we wear make up to sleep in bed? You must let the world know who you are, otherwise, what story are you telling? You are communicating to the world who you are but if the communication falls short of telling who you are, then in natural fact, you are not letting me know who you are,” he said.
When asked of personal efforts he had made to ensure that films properly reflect the Ghanaian culture in movies that he featured in, he explained that:
“A lot of producers or directors will tell you that I am always making sure that there are certain elements in the story that will reflect me as a Ghanaian. So most of the time, my costume should reflect Ghana.”
The veteran actor warns that if the phenomenon is not checked, Ghana’s culture will lose its significance and ‘get dissolved’.
“This is what we are. Whether we like it or not. You must reflect your environment and sense of survival. The only way we can survive is to tell who we are. At times we sit here and think that we cannot, so to speak, get dissolved. We can get dissolved in the sense that there would come a time where we will have people living in Ghana who call themselves Ghanaians who don’t know anything about Ghana.
