Leila Djansi: Ghanaian filmmakers have ego
Leila Djansi has been recognised by various international organisations for her continuous work in the field of women rights advocacy through the art of filmmaking
Filmmaker, Leila Djansi, has advised Ghanaian movie makers to focus more on bringing out quality products in order to compete effectively on the international market.
She said that when filmmakers use their movies as a means to an end the movie will fail.
“I’m going to be blunt. I think the biggest problem Ghana filmmakers have is ego,” Leila Djansi said in an interview with Naa Ashorkor, the host of the Between Hours Show on Wednesday (31 August).
“It should be so easy for Ghana to get a film all the way up to a shortlist. We have the stories, we have the voices, we have people like you [Naa Ashorkor], people like Ama who can carry the films, but it’s the ego,” Djansi said.
She added: “Like I always say, as a filmmaker if you put yourself first before your film, your film is not going to go anywhere, because art is life. You got to let the art breathe for itself. And that’s one of the things that the Oscars submissions received over the years.”
“I have watched all of the film submissions and honestly for me, the most selfless one I got was ‘Azali‘, so I was not surprised when the votes came in and ‘Azali’ passed.
“People were upset. Oh my goodness, people blasted my phone, my battery became inexistent. People were calling and screaming, ‘why you put Azali, why this, why that’, and it wasn’t just my call alone. We voted, it was an organic voting process.
“I don’t know what other people voted for. I just put my number and they tallied the numbers and it went to ‘Azali’. But everybody felt that film, so if my fellow filmmakers will for a minute step outside themselves we will get an Oscar. You can’t manipulate the story as a filmmaker, you can guide the characters,” Djansi said.
Oscar submissions
A member of the Oscars committee in Ghana, Leila Djansi said the committee will be receiving film submissions till 20 September.
“We can now start receiving submissions and deadline is 20 September. So, if you have a qualifying film which is in Ghana, we submit to the foreign language category., international film category. Right now pidgin is accepted as an international language,” she said.
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