The highly anticipated movie by Kobi Rana, ‘My Name is Ramadan’ which features award winning Ghanaian musician Stonebwoy, finally premiered over the weekend at Silverbird Cinemas during the Ramadan celebrations. The premiere of the movie was strategically tied to the festive season as the message targeted primarily the Muslim community and the rest of the public. The movie encapsulates a lot subject matters that are common to the Ghanaian community.
‘My Name is Ramadan’ tells a story of a boy who grows up under strict Islamic training in a ‘Zongo’ community. The death of his father becomes the turning point for him as he is compelled to take up the responsibility of providing for his mother and sister; even as he is uneducated. Therefore, he teams up with his friends, who all by way of fate encountered one predicament or the other that left them penniless, frustrated and desperate for a comfortable life. Their chances of making it are so slim but they, must succeed at all cost. The story interestingly evolves from a young naughty kid who turns into a notorious gang lord and is later caught up in his own web.
The movie touches on so many issues that are plaguing the Ghanaian society such as the influence of Western culture, through movies, on children, armed robbery, Tramadol abuse, domestic violence, poor sanitation, religious hypocrisy, teenage pregnancy, poorly equipped hospitals, the absence of father figures in the home, under aged girls being pushed into traditional marriages and others.
Though the movie had more dramatic scenes, there were also some humorous aspects. Lines like “I am so single that I don’t even have a surname” and “Why your feet dey mel like that? You know hear of Angel Cream?” made the movie pleasant to watch.
The director and lead actor in the movie, Kobi Rana, explained the main rationale behind the movie. “It’s about life. We see people doing some things we don’t agree with and we tend to judge them without knowing how they started. But to solve a problem, we need to tackle it from the roots, and that’s what we tried to show in this movie”, he said.
Actress OB Black expressed her excitement in working with Kobi Rana on this movie. “I have known kobi Rana from the School of Performing Arts, and i know he is a very creative person. I have seen plays written and directed by him, and so when he told me about it i definitely wanted to be part of it.”
In totality, though a tragedy, the movie was entertaining and suspense filled and can be summarised into one rhetorical question by a line used in the movie: “How can I live in peace when life is war?”
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Credit: Jerry Wonder
Photography Credit: AugustLiveGh Photography
