Chaos at ‘Is the President Dead’ movie premiere

FIriday was a night of nightmares at the Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe during the premiere of Is the President Dead?

Technical glitches, indications of ill preparedness came one after the other during the screening of the movie leaving patrons wondering why the premiere was slated for the night.

As one was taking a seat in the  auditorium, one was  greeted by a screen looking rather too small. The name big screen did not befit this particular ‘screen’. 

The movie was scheduled to start at 6pm, but it started at 8pm. Patrons then stopped grumbling, but their joy was short-lived as at 20 minutes before 9pm the movie went mute and a few minutes later the whole screen went black. 

The patrons protested in unison with a loud ‘aaah!’ By 8.43 pm, the screen came back to life only for it to go black again for five minutes.

At this moment the MC, Joab Chakhaza came on stage with an apology while the technical team addressed the problem. He called on stage the lead actor Edin Chonde to engage patrons as they waited for screening to resume. 

Chonde shared a brief history of the movie industry in the country.

 His narration started from the time of  To Ndirande Mountain With Love, a movie that was shot when Blantyre’s Ndirande Mountain had trees.

Chonde talked about other local movie producers such as Charles Shemu Joya and Joyce Mhango Chavula. 

He then started explaining what the movie they were premiering was all about. In his words, Is the President Dead? relates to relatable issues in the country, especially events that happened towards the end of president Bingu wa Mutharika’s reign. 

Chonde was, however, quick to dissociate the movie from the true story of the late president saying: “There could be some similarities here and there, but this is purely a work of fiction.”

The patrons started booing him as they felt that he was pre-emptying the movie’s storyline.

Then it was clear that there was a serious technical problem so much that there was high possibility of the movie not being screened.

The audience got tired of Chonde’s talk and shouted at him to leave the stage. He  obliged and the DJ played some music to fill the gap.

At 9.06pm, the screen came back to life but the movie did not start from where it stopped. It was also obvious that the movie was played  from an editing programme Adobe Premiere. 

The movie producer Isaac Misoya told The Nation that the copy  had been corrupted; hence,  audio was mute.

“Now, on Adobe Premiere, there were jump cut transitions which presented black screens as the clips were transitioning from one clip to another,” he said.

There were too many technical glitches and the patrons’ patience ran thin.

The challenges continued until 11pm when the movie premiere ended unceremoniously as there were no credits at the end of the film. 

Misoya, jumped on stage to apologise to patrons, but he was met with hostility. 

However, he acknowledged that they had worked under pressure because they had set the deadlines of their project too tight. 

He said: “We couldn’t cancel the premiere because the dates were already set. The product which we have shown is not what we arranged to show.”

 Looking through the movie, one can tell that the movie has a good storyline and the project was well planned save for the last part. 

On Saturday, the movie producers released a statement apologising to patrons and promised them  another premiere using the same tickets.

On its part, Film Association of Malawi also released a statement advising the producers to postpone the Blantyre premiere which was scheduled for yesterday, until all the challenges are sorted.

“We believe in the resilience and potential of the Malawian film industry and are dedicated to fostering an environment of excellence and professionalism,” reads the statement in part.