Nigeria tops 2016 AMAA nominations

Nigerian movies have received the most nods for this year’s Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). Movies like ‘Soldiers story,’ and ‘Dry’ were among those nominated. They were nominated for the ‘Achievement in production design’ and in the ‘Rivers State government endowed award for best Nigerian film,’ respectively. ‘Fifty,’ directed by Biyi Bandele led the pack […]

Nigerian movies have received the most nods for this year’s Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). Movies like ‘Soldiers story,’ and ‘Dry’ were among those nominated.
They were nominated for the ‘Achievement in production design’ and in the ‘Rivers State government endowed award for best Nigerian film,’ respectively. ‘Fifty,’ directed by Biyi Bandele led the pack with six nominations. It was closely followed by ‘Soldiers story’ a movie by Frank Ogar which received five nominations.
The President of the jury who is also Chairman of the College of Screeners, Mr. Shaibu Husseini, in a statement said that AMAA is a jury-based award and not a voting award.
He also said that 26 categories of nominations were announced, leaving two which would later be decided upon after the board of jurors conclude on them.
Husseini also applauded the quality of movies entered for the competition, saying that this year’s entries improved greatly from previous editions.
The president said: “We are very happy about the quality of works that came into the competition this year and it gladdens our heart that every year the objectives of the awards are being achieved with film makers in Africa and beyond upping their game.”
He advised filmmakers on the quality of films, subtitling and what should be done to have good film productions.
“Our filmmakers only need to pay attention to details especially in the technical areas. We have the stories already especially filmmakers producing films in African languages. [The] Truth is we can only compete at the Oscars with our indigenous language films and to do this we must improve on our photography, sound, editing and other technical areas. Our people need to improve on sub-titling of our films. What we do as sub-titling are jokes and there is no way our films can travel within the international film festival circuits when the people can’t make sense of our films,” he said.
Countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Burkina Faso are in the lead for taking the AMAA glory, especially in categories of acting and best director.