Veteran actress and producer Selassie Ibrahim has accused Ghanaian television stations of destroying the country’s once-thriving film industry by favoring cheap foreign movies over local productions.
Speaking on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, Ibrahim said local channels pay as little as GH₵1,000 for Ghanaian films that cost $20,000 to $30,000 to make—making it impossible for filmmakers to break even.
“You shoot content and send it to TV channels; they look into your eyes and tell you a thousand Ghana cedis when I spent over $20,000 to $30,000,” she said.
She accused stations of prioritizing old foreign films that have already earned profits through cinemas and international sales.
“Yet they go and buy movies that are 10 years old that had made their money out of cinema and everything,” Ibrahim added.
The producer warned that without fair pricing and support, Ghana’s film sector—once a cultural powerhouse in the early 2000s—will remain dormant.
“When people say ‘Ghanaian film is dead,’ my heart bleeds. But it started from the TV channels because they killed our industry,” she stated.
Ibrahim also criticized a broader cultural attitude in Ghana that celebrates foreign content while rejecting local work.
“In Nigeria, you won’t find them watching Ghanaian movies. But in Ghana, anything foreign is fine; everything Ghanaian is bad. We don’t know how to celebrate our own.”
She called on regulators and TV owners to enforce local content quotas—like those in Nigeria and South Africa—and offer realistic acquisition fees to revive Ghallywood.
Since 2015, film production in Ghana has dropped sharply, with many blaming low TV payments, unchecked satellite channels, and weak policy support.
Ibrahim vowed to keep speaking out until change happens.
“I’ve said it before and they bashed me. But I will still keep saying it until they help us.”
