Kenyan and Ghanaian films are big winners at the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards

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Kenyan and Ghanaian films are big winners at the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards --

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 20:23

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At a glamourous ceremony held at the upmarket Eko Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria on Saturday 8 March, the second annual round of the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCAs) were presented to the continent s leading talents in the film and television industries.

Although still dominated by Nigerian talent and productions, the awards this year showed a notable shift towards greater diversity, and truly pan-African content, reflecting significant growth in industries aside from that of Nigeria.

The two big winners on the night, each taking four awards, were from territories outside of the Nollywood movie machine. From Kenya, Nairobi Half Life grabbed all the major technical awards, while the Ghanaian-made comedy Contract picked up the top creative accolades.

As the first few awards were given out, there seemed a very strong possibility that Nairobi Half Life would make a clean sweep in the seven categories in which it was nominated. Several winners joked, when receiving their awards, that they were either thankful that Nairobi Half Life had not been nominated in their categories or that they gave up hope of winning when they heard that it was. Ultimately it took the prizes in the categories of Best Lighting Designer (Mohamed Zain), Best Art Director (Barbara Minishi), Best Cinematographer (Christian Almesberger) and Best Make-Up Artist (Elayne Okaya).

Quite fittingly, the awards ceremony took place on both International Women s Day and just two days after Ghanaian Independence Day. The coincidence of these two occasions was clearly a good omen for Ghanaian filmmaker Shirley Frimpong-Manso, who walked onto the stage, not once, but four times to receive awards in various categories for her film Contract. The movie, which stars South African actor Hlomla Dandala who was also nominated for Best Actor won in the Best Director, Best Movie, Best Video Editor and Best Writer categories. Frimpong-Manso was the honoree or co-honoree in all of these.

The performance of these two films notwithstanding, the AMVCAs were still very much a Nigerian affair. Of the 29 statuettes given out, 18 of them went to Nigerian productions. This shows that Nollywood is still on top of the continent s film and television production sectors. However, as the two multiple-win films made clear, not only are Nigeria s smaller West African neighbours beginning to compete on a high level, but filmmakers in other regions of the continent are too.

Broadcast live across the continent, the awards ceremony appears to have been a great success, and to have been planned and executed extremely well. Barring at least one notable incident, in which presenters of an award found themselves holding the wrong envelope there were few signs of the teething problems that were apparent last year.

The AMVCAs are held by M-Net Africa in association with MultiChoice Africa, and with Amstel Malta as the main sponsor. At the press conference held after the awards show, John Ugbe, managing director of MultiChoice Nigeria, said that the awards were an extension of MultiChoice s commitment to providing a platform for African stories and African talent.

One concern raised by a member of the press was that many of the winning films those that were not specifically produced for the Africa Magic bouquet of channels are not easily available for viewing for most Africans.

Managing director of M-Net Africa, Biola Alabi explained that the relative of shortage of viewing screens across the continent makes distribution a major challenge. Whereas major international film studios can use award shows as marketing tools for the distribution of their work, African filmmakers often don t have access to the distribution and exhibition infrastructure needed to make this leverage truly valuable on this level.

M-Net Africa, she said, will do its best to secure the films in question sought after and acclaimed nominees such as Nairobi Half Life, Last Flight to Abuja and Contract as soon as they are open for negotiation on television and home video exhibition rights.

Report by Warren Holden

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