Socrate Safo Descends On Arts Writers

One of Ghana`s oldest film directors and producer who has been in the movie industry for long and can easily be identified as the second person to have released a commercial video in Ghana with a film title �Unconditional Love� shot in 1987, has revealed some problems in the arts and entertainment industry in Ghana. In an interview with him at Glory Land hotel, he revealed that entertainment journalist don't understand movies because they have not studied movies so when they comment about movies they do it from an ignorant myopic point and they do it raw like a street person who is watching a film and wants to comment on it. �If you are an entertainment journalist, you have to understand what is film making, stage performance etc before you write about films. People complete G.I.J and when they are being employed at publishing houses to write about entertainment, they write trash for the public to read. You will see an entertainment journalist criticizing Kumasi producers that they use one light, one camera and also one week to shoot about twenty movies which I don't think it` s wrong. We producers are show business people or I will say business men so we decide to use any type of camera we want or any way which will make the class of people you want to reach enjoy it� he said in his usual statements. When he was asked if the way they advertise their movies is not affecting the music videos, he said of course no. They are doing what will help them. He continued that if the entertainment journalists were to be in Hollywood, most of them will be shot dead because many entertainment journalist who have gotten the opportunity to write, and because the public listen to whatever they say, they have chosen to name some group of movies classic and others bad films. �There are bad films not only in Ghana so if you the media person doesn`t like the movies we are making, we have a particular group of people we are appealing to and instead of the media congratulating us for the good work we are doing, they rather compare us to the Nigerian movies. We don't compare movies and judge some classic� he asked them. Safo who loves detective films, made it known to Flex that he does not do press launch for his movies not because he cant do it but he does not know the reason why he should do a press launch. �I will do a press launch because I expect people who understand movies to come and watch it, and I cant invite media people who do not understand movies to come for the press launch so they judge my movies like the street person which will not help me and my business. When you are being interviewed by a journalist who knows about movies, it is very simple and sweet for you to be able to elaborate yourself. There was a film festival and a Ghanaian journalist who was interviewing the film makers was asking unnecessary questions� he said. When asked if the movie industry is dying, he said no but it is is going through its normal process and its not got going to die and can never die. The advice he has for G.I.J is that they should do the right thing since that is the biggest training institution for journalist.