Ghana: Sinking Sand for Film Festival
By Peterking Quaye – THE PREMIERE of ‘Sinking Sand’ will not follow the usual trend of movie premieres in Ghana and some parts of the world, according to director Leila Djansi.
She said in an exclusive interview at the movie’s press launch last Friday at the Golden Tulip Hotel that her production team will be organizing a three-day film festival to outdoor the movie.
As part of the event, the main premiere, which is scheduled for the National Theatre on November 13, will be heralded with other activities including seminars.
On Thursday, November 11, there will be a workshop to educate and expose stakeholders to some new trends in movie making. This will be followed by a screening of some African films on Friday, November 12.
On November 13, the day for the main premiere, the ‘Sinking Sand’ crew will head to the Volta Region, precisely Ho, and make some donations ahead of the premiere in the evening.
“The festival is some sort of an event to test the waters to see if we can do an actual film festival in Ghana and how will people react to it or patronize it.
We are looking at holding a huge film festival somewhere probably in November each year. We want to do this small one and put our feet on the grounds, start gathering and following the outcome,” Leila explained.
According to her, she is not following the normal trend in Ghana’s premiering industry because she always wanted to do things differently.“I am not too excited about the festival we are going to do but rather the way forward for the movie industry in Ghana,” she added.
She confirmed reports that some Hollywood big guns will be in Ghana for the event and mentioned that Haiti born Hollywood star Jimmy Jean Louis, who played lead in ‘Sinking Sand’, will also be in town.
The rest of the Hollywood names, apart from her technical crew from Hollywood, will be a surprise package for Ghanaian movie enthusiasts, she said.
Pic: Leila Djansi
