Yvonne Okoro's Contract Is The first Ghanaian film To Screen At ReelWorld Film Festival In Canada In 12years

Yvonne Okoro

Actress Yvonne Okoro’s produced ‘Contract’ film, directed by Shirley Frimpong Manso, has been announced to open this year’s ReelWorld Film Festival in Canada.

ReelWorld Film Festival is Canada’s celebrated annual film festival, founded by Tonya Lee Williams. Every year, it screens features, shorts, documentaries and animation, among others fr

om the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian and other parts of the world. 

This year, Ghana’s ‘Contract’ will be the first film to be screened to open the festival. It is the first Ghanaian film to make it on the festival’s platform in the last 12 years.

Chicken-N-Beer Broke My Marriage – CEO ExtraO

Basil & Rahina

All is not well in the home of Basil Anthony, popularly known as CEO ExtraOrdinaire, CEO of Silky Entertainment, organisers of Chicken-N-Beer party, as he has reportedly separated with the mother of his baby.

He confirmed the rumours in an interview on Xfm last Thursday, saying he was the latest victim of separation.

He said he and his wife, with whom he had a daughter, had been separated for over a year.

Explaining to NEWS-ONEhow the separation occurred, Basil yesterday said, “My wife was very insecure about all the girls who hanged around me at the various events I organised, especially the Chicken-N-Beer party we organised every Sunday at Rockstones Office.”

He added that he had tried to explain the nature of his job to his wife but she was just not ready to bear with it. So she packed her belongings and left her marital home with his daughter.

He has kept this a secret all this while as he continues his life as though everything is ok. Their marriage lasted for only two years.

Meanwhile, Basil’s outfit TicketGhana will this Thursday host the second edition of their popular club event dubbed “Spintex Invasion” at Pool Bar night club.

Artistes as Ruff-N-Smooth, Stonebwoy, Ball-J and more are expected to rock the event. It promises to be a roadblock event and would definitely bring som

e excitement.

Credit: NEWS-ONE

Yvonne Okoro’s Contract Returns To Silverbird Cinemas By Popular Request

Yvonne Okoro encounters Nollywood media

Celebrated actress, Yvonne Okoro's first produced award winning movie, The Contract will return to Silverbird Cinemasthis Easter upon popular request by movie enthusiasts.

Myriads of movie fans have been demanding to see the movie and that has pushed Silverbird Ghana to bring it back into its Cinemas.

It will start showing, Friday March 29 throughout the Easter festival season.

Previous months, the movie garnered huge patronage at various centers it was screened including the Silverbird Cinemas.

Currently, it is the only Ghanaian movie that had multiple nominations for the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in Nigeria.

It had six nominations in the following categories; AMAA 2013 Prize For Best Director’, ‘AMAA 2013 Prize For Best Actress In A Leading Role’, ‘AMAA 2013 Prize For Best Actor In A Leading Role’, ‘AMAA 2013 Prize For Achievement In Screenplay’, ‘AMAA 2013 Prize For Achievement In Editing’ and ‘AMAA 2013 Prize For Achievement In Production Design’.

Yvonne Okoro and South African actor Hlomla Dandala were nominated in the ‘Best Actress In A Leading Role’and Best Actor In A Leading Role’ respectively while Shirley Frimpong Manso was nominated for Best Director’ category.

Contract tells the story of a successful businessman Peter Puplampo, the ultimate alpha male. He is 40 years old, rich and a staunch bachelor. Despite his mother’s persistent attempts to find him a woman, Peter sticks to his rule of non-committal casual dates, freedom and being in control of his life until the desire to have a child arises.
In his quest to find the woman who will take his money, have his child and disappear, Peter begins a roller-coaster, contracted relationship with Abena Boateng, a crude but clever local girl who is anything but impressed with Peter’s affluence.

With a clear definitive contract from his lawyer outlining the dos and don’ts of bearing Peter Puplampo’s child, these two opposites must exercise every ounce of willpower not to kill each other until the child is born.
The movie is an unsuspecting romantic comedy with unusual twists that expose the flaws in being in control of one’s life.

‘Ties That Bind’ Was Fun, ‘Sinking Sands’ Was Stressful-Leila

Leila Djansi on Ties That Bind set

More than three years after she produced two excellent films, which shook the tenets of the African film industry, Leila Djansi has finally opened up on her fondest memories of shooting her ‘Sinking Sands’and ‘Ties That Bind’ films.

She told NEWS-ONE on Sunday morning that shooting both films was nerve-racking but it was also fun.  

Working on ‘Ties That Bind’, she revealed, was not as stressful as ‘Sinking Sands’. But besides the stress, there were fun moments too.

With ‘Sinking Sands’, her fondest memory was filming the wedding scene. It is still fresh on her mind and remembers how they made it look like a “real wedding”.

However, she thought ‘Ties That Bind’ was more fun because, she was not oblivious of her past mistakes while shooting ‘Sinking Sands’.

Sinking Sands behind the scene (Ama K & Yemi Blaq)

She learnt from her past experience on the previous set, which made things easier for her on the ‘Ties That Bind’ set.               

“Hmm ‘Sinking Sands’, honestly, I don’t know if I have any particularly fond memories of that set. I only remember the stress and disorganization. The day we shot the wedding sequence was a lot of fun though. It felt like we were preparing a real wedding and I got to keep the cake.”

Sinking Sands (Jimmy Jean Louis & Ama K)

“‘Ties that Bind’ was fun because by then I had learnt from mistakes of ‘Sinking Sands’ and had a better handle on everything. Every moment on ‘Ties that Bind’ was fun. My favorite day was the day we shot the white garment church at Shai Hills and the scene with the graves,” Leila said.

She added that her submission was not based on outcomes of the scenes in the films but the experiences they had to go through on set.

Sinking Sands (Ama K & Jimmy Jean Louis)

“No. Not the final outcome but the work day. We really felt like we were making a movie. We had over 100 extras, the crew and we had built every aspect of the church. We cleared land at Shai Hills and built a white garment church. We even bought a trip of sand to give the earth a different color. White sand. It felt like we were at camp. The shots were some of my favorites too,” she said.

Both films are doing well on the movie market in Ghana and outside including the World Wide Web.

Ties That Bind ( Ama K)

‘Sinking Sands’, which starred Ama K. Abebrese and Jimmy Jean Louis as the lead cast, produced 2011 Africa Movie Academy Awards Best Actress in lead role and won other awards.

‘Ties That Bind’, which is s story about Kimberly Elise, Omotola Jalade and Ama K. Abebrese, also did convincingly well in the cinemas and awards arena.

Ties That Bind (Ama K. Kimberly Elise & Omotola Jalade)

Credit: NEWS-ONE

     

My Beard Makes Me Sexy-Zeal of VIP Fame

Zeal of VIP

Zeal of VIP

Zeal, singer and a member of Ghana’s award-winning music group, VIP, has said one of the reasons he is keeping a long beard is because he wants to stand out and be counted among Ghana’s sexiest looking men.

According to him, he wanted a new look and give the impression of being sexy.

Zeal, who used to be called Lazy, changed his name in September last year and has maintained his new name, Zeal.

He is well known in his group for keeping his beard well trimmed and short for a very long time. However, in recent times, he has been keeping the beard a little longer, which is giving him a Rick Ross kind of look.

Zeal of VIP

Zeal of VIP

On Friday, he caught the attention of media cameras with his looks when he joined other musicians at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra for the launching of MUSIGA’s monthly musical industrial night event. 

All eyes were on him when he granted interviews and also when he posed for the cameras with fellow musicians Obour, Tic Tac and others.

Promzy and Prodigal, the other members of VIP, were not seen at the ceremony. 

After the programme, he told NEWS-ONE he had no other inspiration for his new look than to change his looks.    

“Well I just wanted to change my look and look like a real man and sexy at the same time,” he told the paper’s Francis Addo.

Born Abdul Hamid Ibrahim, Zeal is one of the popular members of VIP and known for his singing ability.  

The other members are Promzy and Prodigal who were born Emmanuel Promzy Ababio and Joseph Nana Ofori respectively.

The group released its first album in 1998, titled ‘Bibi Baa O’. Since then, it has become the most popular Hip life group in Ghana.

In 2000, it released its second album, ‘Ye De Aba’ which was very successful.

In 2001, it released ‘Lumbe Lumbe Lumbe’with the smashing hit ‘Daben Na Odo Beba’. The group took its career to the next level with its 2003 album ‘Ahomka Womu’. The ‘Ahomka Womu’ title track topped Ghanaian charts for over 20 weeks. 

VIP won five awards at the Ghana Music Awards with the album and the group gained international exposure after this success. Since then, the group has toured the world.

                                                                                                                        

Credit: NEWS-ONE