Kwabena Gyansah, Actress Asana Alhassan, Chioma Ude, Founder and Executive Director of AFRIFF
Two years after winning best actress at the 2018 African International Film Festival (AFRIFF) for her role in ‘Azali’ film, Ghanaian child actress Asana Alhassan is yet to receive her cash prize that was supposed to come with the award.
Organisers of the film festival in Nigeria are still holding onto the money, for reasons unclear.
The director of ‘Azali’, Kwabena Gyansah, who confirmed this on Peace FM on Saturday, said several attempts by him to retrieve the money for Asana have proved futile.
“We won three awards at the AFRIFF, including best writer, best film and best actress which were won by Asana… Best film came with 500,000 Naira cash prize, best actress I think was 250, 000 Naira and best writer also 250,000 Naira. But when I returned to Ghana after the awards, getting the money became an issue. The Nigerians didn’t want to release the money and I don’t know why. They kept giving different excuses and I even threatened them I was going to go public,” he revealed.
“AFRIFF is big festival and so I didn’t want to be seen fighting them because I am a new filmmaker, so I sent their numbers and email to Fuzzy, manager of Asana. I didn’t follow up to find if they sent the money to Fuzzy but they sent me mine after our issues. Fuzzy later called back to say he didn’t receive the money and I advised him to keep pushing the organisers because one of the reasons I sent their details to him was because they wanted to deal with a guardian or parent,” he added.
Fuzzy also said on Peace FM that he didn’t receive the money, yet the actress’ parents are thinking otherwise. He made the issue public because he was suspecting Kwabena Gyansah secretly took the money, an allegation that the director denied.
According to Fuzzy, Asana’s parents have threatened not to allow their daughter pursue her acting career again if she is not given the money.
Meanwhile, the ‘Azali’ crew, including Asana and the director are yet to receive their plaques for awards they won at the Golden Movie Awards Africa and Ghana Movie Awards. Organisers have since not released the plaques to them.
By Francis Addo