Shirley Frimpong Manso
The British Council in Accra is providing opportunities for Ghana filmmakers to not only excel in their field of endeavour but impact the country’s economic growth.
As part of its Creative Enterprise Support Programme, the council is offering training, mentoring and support business development of young and emerging film entrepreneurs in the country.
Through the programme, it would ensure that film entrepreneurs are supported to develop knowledge, skills and relevant networks aimed at building sustainable livelihoods.
It also hopes to increase collaboration and partnerships within West Africa and between Ghana and the UK to support the film ecosystem.
In a statement on its website, it acknowledged “Ghana’s creative industry is a rapidly growing economic powerhouse that is increasingly being recognised as a pathway for sustainable livelihoods for young people across art forms such as film.”
However, it said the creative industry “is faced with the obstacles of weak policy support, lack of infrastructure, weak skills base, low levels of awareness of the livelihood opportunities that exist within the sectors (particularly non-artistic) and limited opportunities for networking, collaborations and skills-sharing.”
Hence the programme is delivered by The First Creatives (Ghana), Henley Business School (UK) and Afrinolly Creative Hub (Nigeria), and is comprised of three stages of joint provided enterprise support.
The first stage is a two-week intensive training for 60 film entrepreneurs to include artistic, technical and enterprise training tailored to the needs of the local sector.
This would be followed by a six-month incubation programme for 30 selected film entrepreneurs from stage one, providing access to workspace, access to equipment within the workspace (for instance, for producing new work, filming, editing and others), training, business support and mentoring.
The third stage is the pitch for grants where there is opportunity for film entrepreneurs from stage two of the programme to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. There would be grants for five film entrepreneurs to develop business plans, start and scale up existing businesses or produce new film projects in Ghana.
By Francis Addo