AMAA nominees to be unveiled

Nominees in the 28 categories of the African Movie Academy Awards, (AMAA) the annual pan-African reward system for motion picture practitioners will hold in Lagos tomorrow according to the organisers. Chairman of the 2015 AMAA jury, Mr. Shaibu Husseini in a statement said the nominees will be unveiled in a ceremony different from the usual […]

Nominees in the 28 categories of the African Movie Academy Awards, (AMAA) the annual pan-African reward system for motion picture practitioners will hold in Lagos tomorrow according to the organisers.

Chairman of the 2015 AMAA jury, Mr. Shaibu Husseini in a statement said the nominees will be unveiled in a ceremony different from the usual practice of announcing the nominees at a Gala Night ceremony.
He said: “In the last 8 years the nominees have been announced at events outside Nigeria and the last year being at JW Marriot Hotel, Los Angeles, United States. We are having both the nominees’ event and the main awards in Nigeria this year. We look forward to a very grand award in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in June.”

Submissions according to the release included feature films, documentaries, animations and short films from within Africa and the Diaspora for the awards which is in its 12th edition.

Hussieni said: “Only 25 feature films will make it into nomination stage of the AMAA selection out of the over 280 feature films received this year from over 25 African countries including Nigeria, Cape Verde, Gambia, Morrocco, Uganda, Togo, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cameroun, Mali, Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya, Algeria and Egypt. Also 15 short films from with Africa and the Diaspora made it to the final stages with only eight of the African documentary films scaling through to nomination and three Diaspora short films.

The Board of Jurors of AMAA whose members include academics, filmmakers, critics and film festival curators from Nigeria, Germany, United States, Zimbabwe, Jamaica and Burkina Faso will decide on which film and individual talents that will make the nominations and also eventual winners.

Entries went through four stages of pre-screening before the College of Screeners which makes the final decision on works that will go to the Board of Jurors.