THE 6th edition of African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) held last recently in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria saw Kunle Afolayan’s movie The Figurine emerged the top winner of the night, claiming all of five awards. However, Afolayan, who only yesterday returned from the New York African Film Festival to attend the event, did not get the coveted Best Director Award. Ghana’s Shirley Frimpong-Manso, director of The Perfect Picture clinched the award. Ramsey Nouah, who’s away in the US,  missed the event, but was able to give his acceptance speech (for winning Best Actor in a leading role) after Kunle Afolayan placed a call to his mobile phone and placed the phone on speaker.

FULL LIST OF WINNERS

AMAA BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADINGROLE: JACKIE APIA (PERFECT PICTURE)

By David Ajiboye

Malawian top actress, Flora Suya, is a top contender in this year’s Best Actress category at the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), scheduled to take place on Saturday,  April 10, in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital. Suya’s role in the movie, Season of a Life, earned her the nomination, alongside other A-list actresses like Ghanaian Jackie Appiah, Lydia Forson, Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku, Stephanie Okereke and Bimbo Akintola, who just got her first nomination at AMAA for her excellent performance in the movie Bond and Fred Amata’s Freedom in Chain.

The chairman of College of Screeners, Mr. Shuaib Hussein said that Flora Suya might be the revelation AMAA has thrown up this year, adding that the award was fulfilling its mission and set objectives, as other African countries were coming out strongly in the business of film making.
“Flora Suya’s role in Season of a Life is superlative.  She is a complete talent that will go places in her acting career.  It is also a wake up call and challenge for our top actors and actresses to up their games. Nominations for awards anywhere in the world is a function of quality of work, professionalism and not whether anybody is an A-list star or not,” said Hussein.

Hussein also said the entries received from  North African countries, with Algeria and Egypt as strong contenders in the Best Animation category continued to attest to the popularity and acceptability of AMAA as the most respected recognition platform for the film industry in Africa.
Kunle Afolayan’s Figurine and Izu Chukwu’s Nnenda and The Child,  were among 30 films that made the nominations for this year’s African Movie Academy Awards, out of the over 280 entries received across Africa.

At a colorful nominations party held at Mensvic Hotel, East Legion, Accra, Ghana last Saturday, the nominations were announced by Hussein, chairman of College of Screeners.

In the Best Actor’s category are Ramsey Nouah, Lucky Ejim, Majid Michael, Odera Ozoka and John Osie Tutu, for their roles in The Tenant, Sin of a Soul, The Figurine, Soul Diaspora and I Sing of a Well.

Kunle Afolayan, Shemu Joyah, Shirley Frimpong, Leilla Jewel Djansi, Jude Idada and Lucky Ejim will slug it out in the Best Director category.  At the star-studded nominations party in Ghana included Mr. Richard Mofe-Damijo, Delta State Commissioner for Tourism and Culture; Rita Dominic, Segun Arinze, Osita Iheme, Paul Obazele, Ejike Asiegbu, Dickson Iruegbu, Kunle Afolayan, Steve Ayorinde, Muma Gee, J. Martins, among others.

Mr. Emeka Mba,Director General Nigeria Films and Video Censors Board(NFVCB) delivering his address at the African Film/Television Programmes Expo held in Abuja.

Some dignitaries rendering the national anthem at the event

Nollywood Actor,Francids Duru making a remark at the event.

Oba Dosumu,the traditional ruler of Owu Kingdom presenting an award to top Nollywood producer.

More pix from the Event

More pix from the event.

More pix from the event

More pix from the event

By Ali Baylay

A Venus Film productions.Starring: Van Vicker, Jackie Appiah, Kofi Adjorlolo, Kalsoume Sinare, Rama Brew, Gavivina Tamakloe, Yvonne Nelson; Editor: Dapo Ola Daniels; Assistant Producer: Ali Samba; Producer: Abdul Salam Mumuni; Executive Producer: Abdul Salam Mumuni; Director: Frank Rajah Arase. 150 mins.

The princely cast of Gollywood’s finest really do an excellent performance here, to boot, and in fact this movie got me sold to Gollywood movies. As you can see, I’ve been all about Nollywood, but since  I discovered Tears of Womanhood, a Gollywood classic, I  believe  good movies do come from Ghana’s woods, such as Princess Tyra. With its fairy tale nature, this movie will take you to a fairyland where stories like Cindarella may seem a joke.

Princess Tyra is not our typical royalty versus peasant kind narrative; it is a kind of story about a royalty kicking against the mores of a palace,  in exchange for the common life. Your guess is good as mine where such kingdom exists in our part of Africa, but this prince sure looks like a future king of Morocco than the true negroid prince of lower Sudan.

I did not have the patience to sit through part 3 of this movie, ’cause I live in the first world and no one movie will put my life on hold for three hours straight. Princess Tyra  is a good movie though, one of its kind coming from Africa today. Imagine, two royal families promised each other a child in marriage so both kingdoms could cement relationships. It turns out  Prince Kay (Van Vicker) has turned liberal, scorning everything royale in exchange for common life. He doesn’t believe that in this “ 21st century people still indulge in those barbaric rites”, he queried at one point.  At the other end of this tangent,  is a saucy, spoilt brat, Princess Tyra (Yvonne Nelson), who can put on hold the hustle and bustle of a supermarket, just so she can buy an item or two.

Prince Kay is turned off by Princess Tyra’s stringent royal tradition and principles, who declares that, “the wishes of mortals the gods command.” And she has  frequent outbursts with not a dint of romance in it. He, runs from a princess, “who’ll not have my peace”, he laments. But for Princess Tyra, “Where thunder and lightning strikes birds don’t fly”, she boasts of destroying whoever stands between her and her desire for the prince, because, “vegeance of a woman is like a burning bush”.  

In the middle of it all is a common maid, Maafia (Jackie Appiah) who massages the prince’s feet in a rite once and later in a queer bathroom incident, falls under the romantic rader of the prince. We did not see the two (prince and maid) mate, but not long after the maid’s mother dies of asthma attack, Maafia leaves Ilugbo Kingdom in search of Prince Kay to report her pregnancy to him but instead meets the prince’s mother, the Queen, and reports her pregnancy. The Queen doesn’t handle this news well.

The story gets sticky when writer employs another plot  and character, Ashley to merely resemble Maafia and gets Ashley pregnant by the prince , and both by bizzare plot twist, meet side by side in a hospital. Camera and edit can pull all kinds of  tricks but this Maafia look alike coming into the story sure put a damper and unbelievable feeling to the story. I marvel the fact that writer created a three dimensional character for Jackie Appiah’s role (maid, Ashley, Maafia) , only that in narrating such a wonderful fairy tale, story and character have  to be linear in nature, or not even Cinderella could have survived as a timeless tale with such muddled plots. Prince Kay would have gone on pulling all the stops to get to his one and  only cinderalla, rather than easily fall for a look alike and gets her pregnant too.