Nigeria trails Congo, South Africa in the battle for AMAA 2011 Crest Yenagoa the capital of Bayelsa State will erupt in applause on the night of Sunday March 27th, 2011 when winners in the 26 categories the 7th edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards will be announced.
Giving the breakdown of the nominations as announced on February 25th in Kenya, the Chief Executive Officer of the award body, Ms. Peace Anyiam-Osigwe at media briefing on Monday at Protea Leadway Hotel, Maryland, Ikeja gave the breakdown of the nominations where she said Congo and South Africa got the highest nominations.
She said though ‘Viva River’, a film from Congo had the highest single nominations adding that South Africa has four films that are very strong that made the nomination.
The four South Africa films in competition include ‘Hope Ville’ with 9 nominations, ‘Izulu Lami’, 7 nominations, ‘Shirley Adams’, 5 nominations and ‘A small Town Called Descent’ got 6 nominations. Combined together South Africa had the highest nominations by country with total of 27 nominations.
Ghana’s ‘Sinking Sound’ had 10 nominations and Kenya’s ‘Soul Boy’ had 6 nominations while Nigeria has four films that are also prominent on the nomination list with Tunde Kelani’s ‘Maami’, ‘Inale’, a film directed by Jeta Amata, Niyi Akanji’s ‘Aramotu’, and Mahmood Alli-Balogun’s ‘Tango With Me’. Nigeria by country nomination trail South Africa with 23 total nominations.
”I want to say we have strong films across Africa and Diaspora in competition for this year’s AMAA and all the films that made the nominations whether they win or not in their different categories are good films that will do well in film circuits around the world,”
She also revealed that more than seventy percent of the nominees across Africa and beyond have signified their interest to attend the awards in Nigeria while stating the readiness of the organizers and host state of Bayelsa to welcome the guests from within and outside Nigeria.
”The good thing about this year’s AMAA is that our guests will experience Bayelsa in a new way as we have events line up for a whole week. AMAA this year will not be a day event. There will be opportunity to network, share experiences and even make co-production deals with other filmmakers. Visitors will explore the sights and sound of Bayelsa and feel the people and culture of the state.
Beyond Oil Bayelsa has great tourism potentials waiting for entrepreneurs to grab.” she said.
Other highlight of the media briefing was the screening of a Four-minute documentary and short film titled ‘Hidden Treasure’ produced by some Bayelsa youths who were part of the training programme organized by Africa Film Academy to train 50 Bayelsan youths in different aspect of film making.
The Academy in conjunction with the state government will sponsor the best four among the students to Prague Film School for further training.