"Filmmakers complaining that the industry is dead are not smart"

Popular actor Prince David Osei has said industry stakeholders who opine that Ghana’s movie industry is dead are “not smart people.”

He told News One that “smart” filmmakers ought to change their strategies to adapt to the new changes in the system.

“I can say it in capital letters that industry people complaining that the industry is dead are not smart. In every endeavour, you expect harsh conditions because everything will not go rosy. So sometimes you should predict. I saw this coming a long time ago that it will get to a point when producers will not be able to pay me and certain actors because the economy is bad, production budget is low, patronage from fans have gone down.

“So as an actor or a movie person, you should be able to adapt to the system. You should be smart. The smart ones are still prevailing. Those ones who are waiting for producers to call them and bring them scripts are the ones suffering. Those that are smart are the ones making it,” he told New One.

David was commenting on the current state of Ghana’s movie industry.

“Previously when we do a movie, we could sell the rights, but now piracy is killing us and aside piracy the enthusiasm of the fans have gone down. We are going through a new phase but I won’t say the movie industry is collapsing.

That’s why you have to be smart as an actor. For the past two or three years, I have not really been in Ghana. I have been out there doing my stuff. So you have to be innovative. When the harsh weather is going against you, you have to move. As I talk to you, my one cast movie, I’m still premiering in central London on the October 21 and other cities in the UK. Some way somehow, I am busy. Other people like Yvonne Nelson are doing other things. That is the level it has gotten to.

Individually, people are doing stuff because I have been around. I have been all over the place in Canada, UK, US, Germany and Holland promoting my one cast movie and doing other stuffs. Currently, I have a movie deal to shoot in Los Angeles. So individually, people are doing brilliant stuff. Yvonne Nelson is shooting her series, Juliet Ibrahim doing hers, other people are shooting theirs. Even though people say it is collapsing, presently I am on set shooting ‘Table of Men’ being produced by Ekow Smith. I also just shot a movie with Jackie Appiah titled ‘Happily Never After’. So mainly individuals are doing stuff,” he disclosed.

David shot to fame through a 2010 British zombie film, ‘The Dead’, produced by Indelible Productions, in association with Latitude Films and also starring Rob Freeman.