Just after Obama had announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, I knew Kumasi movie producers will be the first to produce a commercial movie about the life and death of Osama. But as to if they are going to tell the story in the exact way Osama was killed in the dark of the night, at the time U.S. helicopters approached a high-walled compound in Pakistan on a mission to capture and kill one of the world’s most notorious terrorist leaders, I was not sure.
Information reaching us indicates that two movie producers are fighting over the movie title “Osama Bin Laden”- (part one and two). Jones Agyemang who is the C.E.O of J.A. Films, whose name was mentioned in this development was contacted on phone and he told this paper that there is a big competition in the Twi movie industry especially on the issue of choosing a title for a movie, recounting that he was once on set shooting “All Die Be Die” when Samuel Ofori visited the set and within some few weeks, he was told Samuel Ofori was also shooting a movie with the same title. Due to that, he did not go ahead to fight him because he also had the right to shoot whatever he wanted to shoot, so the one who will bring it out first will be the owner of the movie. He also lamented that now everybody is hiding his own movie title and can’t tell if he or any other producer is shooting “Osama Bin laden”.
“The issue of who owns a movie title does not only pertain among the Akan film producers but even in Accra when the issue of ‘sakawa’ became rife, most of the glamour film producers came out with their ‘sakawa’ titles: Venus films came out with “Dons of Sakawa”, Socrate Safo did “Sakawa Boys” while others came out with “Agya Koo Sakawa” among others. So for me, when I choose a title for my movie and I realize some one has come out with the same title, I think it’s an opportunity to re-frame my title but not to change it totally” Mr. Agyeman said.
Frank Fiifi Gharbin who won Best Director in the Ghana Movie Awards 2010 also contributed to the interview by saying he cannot also give out the names of the producer(s) shooting “Osama Bin Laden”, but what is wrong about the whole drama is this. “If you are not one of the top producers and you end up shooting Osama Bin Laden before another top producer shoots his, you have to change your title even though you shot your`s first.
“The most interesting thing is that sometimes you watch some of the movies with a controversial title and you will find nothing closer to the title chosen, the only thing they look at before choosing the title is the marketing aspect not the content and that is very bad ” he added.
He also talked about the need for ‘quality’ in their movies, which he thinks if not taken serious, will one day affect the Twi movie industry. Hear him: “most of the Akan movie producers learn the job on the field and since they have their target audience, they make sales after releasing their movies and don’t really care about the outside or international market” he advised the producers.
