Filmmaker Leila Djansi has stirred debate in Ghana's film industry with a pointed message about the growing trend of releasing movies on YouTube. In a Facebook post reported by Graphic Showbiz on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, she argued that putting out films online every few weeks or months should not be celebrated as filmmaking.
"Releasing a film on YouTube every two months is not an achievement. I daresay it is NOT filmmaking. That's content creation," Djansi wrote, according to Graphic Showbiz.
She said the speed of such releases raises questions about how much care goes into story, development and production. Filmmaking, she argued, involves far more than pointing a camera, including mise-en-scène, the arrangement of everything that appears on screen, and careful storytelling.
"Some films take years to develop, finance, shoot, and complete. Major productions can cost millions of dollars," she said.
Djansi did not place the responsibility on filmmakers alone. She said audiences should make more effort to find films, for example by searching online for work by their favourite actors and directors, instead of complaining that local films are hard to access.
"But audiences also have a responsibility to develop an interest in the art they consume," she wrote. At the same time, she said filmmakers must still market their work properly.
She also pushed back against the idea that older films are outdated. "A film you have never seen before is new to you," she wrote, recalling a class in which her students watched films made in 1972.
One of her main proposals is a central website or app where filmmakers can register their releases, share production information, upload trailers and link to legitimate viewing platforms. She said this would make Ghanaian films easier to find and create a lasting record of the country's cinema for future generations, Graphic Showbiz reports.
She also urged Ghanaian filmmakers to think beyond the local market by building stronger industry relationships, learning more about distribution and deliberately targeting audiences abroad.
Djansi is one of Ghana's most internationally recognised filmmakers. Her films include Like Cotton Twines, Where Children Play and And Then There Was You, which she says have performed well internationally. She also teaches film.
Her comments touch on one of the biggest shifts in Ghanaian and Nigerian film in recent years. With cinema tickets expensive for many viewers and traditional DVD sales gone, many producers now release feature-length films directly on YouTube, earning money from advertising and building large online audiences.
Supporters say the model has kept many actors and crews working, given new talent a platform and made local stories freely available to millions of viewers. Critics argue that the pressure to release often can lower production standards and make it harder for more ambitious projects to compete.
At the heart of Djansi's argument is the difference between producing a lot of content and producing work of lasting quality. Feature films made for cinema or international festivals often go through multiple script drafts, extensive pre-production, and careful editing and sound design, processes that can take many months or years.
Her call is not for filmmakers to abandon YouTube, but for the industry to be clear about what counts as achievement and to aim for standards that can compete globally.
Djansi's post comes days after actress and producer Yvonne Okoro said Ghanaians tend to dismiss local films as sub-standard while praising foreign productions. Together, their comments reflect a wider conversation about quality, audience support and how Ghanaian cinema can grow.
The post had not drawn public responses from other filmmakers at the time of the Graphic Showbiz report. Her proposal for a national film database could gain attention from industry bodies such as the National Film Authority, which has been working to promote and document Ghanaian cinema.
