Arts and Culture

Vaya, 76, Queen of Katwe, others vie for AMAAgongs

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THE Akin Omotosho directed South African movie, Vaya, is leading the pack with 10 nominations for the 2017 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) to be hosted by the Lagos State Government on July 15.

The film is ahead of Nigerian and Ugandan entries, ‘76’ and ‘Queen of Katwe’ with eight nominations each.

Directed by IzuOjukwu, ‘76’ was only this week announced a joint winner of the Public Choice Award at the 2017 Nollywood Week Film Festival in Paris, France, alongside The Wedding Party.  It stars Rita Dominic, Ramsey Nouahand ChidiMokeme while ‘Queen of Katwe’ features Lupita Nyong’o.

At a news briefing held at the Raddison Blu Hotel and Conference Centre, Kigali, Rwanda last Sunday, the president of the AMAA jury, Berni Goldblat revealed the trio as the entries with the highest nominations.

He disclosed that 30 categories of awards, including the newly added Best Comedy prize, will be given out alongside three special jury prizes.

“Every year, the competition gets stiffer and this year in particular we have great films for consideration. The quality of production in Africa continues to improve and national governments are investing to support the growth of the motion picture industry. This is a major achievement for AMAA in its 13 years history. The government of Senegal recently announced $3 million US dollars fund to support film makers in Senegal. Because of the level of standards AMAA has established as a Jury-based awards, filmmakers in Africa are very conscious of attention they put into their works and this has impacted on production value compared to 13 years ago when AMAA started,” he said

Aside ‘76’, Nigerian movies, ‘93 Days’ about the 2014 Ebola crisis earned seven nominations, ‘Oloibiri’ starring RMD got seven and action movie, ‘Slow Country’ got four.

ShaibuHussieni, a member of the jury and chair, College of Screeners, who briefed journalists alongside Goldblat, disclosed that it was a herculean task pruning down the entries that were received from Africa and the Diaspora.

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