Ahead of the 19th edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), the organisers, Africa Film Academy, has unveiled its plans and activities ahead of the event.
The activities were made known to the media recently at a meeting in Lagos state.
The founder and president of AMAA, Peace Antiam-Osigwe, said the decision to unveil the plans and activities ahead of the 19th edition of the continental film awards was deliberate and a move to involve every film practitioner in Africa and the diaspora.
The organisers also announced a call for entry ahead of the 2023 edition of the AMAAs.
The early call for entry, Anyiam-Osigwe said, is to enable more film practitioners across Africa and the diaspora to submit and participate in the 19th edition.
Anyiam-Osigwe said, “This is an avenue to officially rest the 18th edition of the AMAAs under the supervision of the Africa Film Academy and begin the journey to 2023. We are calling for all category entries, which will last until March 2023.”
She said, “We are now accepting submissions for the 19th Africa Movie Academy Awards. The Africa Film Academy invites filmmakers to submit their feature, short, animation, and documentary work for consideration in nearly 30 film categories of the awards.” Anyiam-Osigwe further reiterated that AMAA is not a popularity contest form of award ceremony but a professional contest that rewards professionalism across Africa.
She added that one of the aims of creating AMAA is to provide and create a networking platform and avenue for African filmmakers and practitioners to interact while getting rewarded for their creativity, uniqueness, authenticity and professionalism.
The awards show producer, Kingsley James, reiterated that the Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, will return as the host for the 19th edition of the AMAAs while other activities that include human capacity building by the AFA, jury’s session, and nomination unveil.
“For us, our announcement of the lined-up activities for AMAA 2023 is a deliberate action from our end. We will have two or three activities every month until the end of the year, including human capacity building under AFA, screenings of films and the awards ceremony.
“We would be screening the five biggest films in AMAA 2022 to the media so they can also understand why these films were nominated and won big. We will have a monthly dialogue with practitioners and creative.
As I have noted, the awards ceremony will hold in Lagos under the supervision of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu; we will also be having another round of film in a box while the nomination unveils will come up in August 2023.
For the AMAA proper, we will have a 7-days complete creative week encompassing music, film, fashion and arts. So I can tell you it’s a tightly packed year for us at AMAA, and we can’t do it all alone without the support of the media,” James said.
The event is coming after a successful 18th edition held at the Jewel Aeida hall in the Lekki area of Lagos on Sunday, October 30.
The 18th edition, with Nigerian filmmakers and films winning several awards, also had scintillating performances from music stars, including King Sunny Ade, P-Square, Young Jon Zadok, Yinka Davies, and Candy Bleakz.
The 2022 edition of the continental film awards ceremony had Funnybone, Chigul, and Kachi Offia taking the host position.
The event had in attendance Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, founder and president of AMAA, Kingsley James, Chief Operating Officer of AMAA, and Shaibu Husseni, head of AMAA’s College of Screeners.
