15th March, 2012
The race is on for this year’s edition of the movie awards, AMAA. With 328 filmmakers competing in this year’s edition to make it into the “Nominations Round”, successful nominees will be announced in Banjul, The Gambia on 17 March.
The 328 entries were received from AMAA’s regional offices in Lagos, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana; Johannesburg, South Africa and Namibia. A break down shows the figures for the entries as (Documentaries – 57), (Short films-88), (Africans in Diaspora-43), (Animations-6), and 134 feature films from Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Guinea, Cameroon, Algeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Egypt among others. South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso have all played host to the nomination events in the past.
Organisers of AMAA are of the view that Gambia would give movie practitioners and celebrities the opportunity of basking in its tourism splendour, which the country boastfully offers.
The earlier editions had seen Nigerian filmmakers and actors/actresses dominating in various categories, but the past two years have been different.
—Funsho Arogundade