Ghana hosts Indian Film Festival to motivate Ghanaian filmmakers

Accra, Ghana: A film festival in Accra has made Ghanaian filmmakers optimistic of possible collaborations with their Indian counterparts to learn from their experiences, leading film producer Socrates Safo has said.

"We are keen and would want to collaborate with our counterparts in the Indian film industry to produce films for the international market," Safo told IANS.

"We know they have vast experience in film production that we can tap into, but we are yet to make the approach. The time has come for collaboration to begin and once it starts, we believe it would be a long-lasting cooperative effort," Safo added.

"Indian films have been popular in the country and since we have also started an industry that is growing there is nothing wrong in forging a relationship," Safo said after the Indian high commission in Accra opened the three-day film festival on April 2.

Before the festival, there has been renewed growth in the interest in Indian films across the country as televisions stations have started broadcasting these films with local language sub-titles.

Safo informed a Ghanaian filmmaker had already started finishing work on a film produced with Indian actors who spoke in one of the country's main local languages, "Twi".

The high commission said the idea behind the film festival was to increase the bond of friendship between the people of the two countries. "Ghanaian friends are not strangers to Indian cinema."

"For decades, Indian movies have been shown in cinema halls across the country. There are many cultural facets reflected through Indian cinema which receive an emotional response from Ghanaian friends because of the expansive cultural affinities between the two peoples despite geographical distance."

Among some of the films shown were "Chalte Chalte", "Paheli" and "Sholay" with sub-titles in English.(IANS)