AMAA 2015: Nigeria, S/A vie for honours

South Africa’s ‘INumber Number’and Mauritania’s ‘Timbuktu’ led the pack at the 2015 African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) night held last weekend in Los Angeles, US.
While ‘INumber Number’ had 12 nominations, ‘Timbuktu’ got 11. Other countries with high nominations include Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cote d Voire.
The usual suspects from Nigeria, Kunle Afoyan and Tunde Kelani, with ‘October 1’ and ‘Dazzling Mirage’ also made the list of nominees.
Other Nigerian movies nominated include Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen’s ‘1897’, Steve Gukas’ ‘A Place in the Stars’ and ‘Iyore’.
As it happened last year, Ghana’s Jocelyn  Dumas  (Silver Rain) and Ini Edo (While You Slept)  are pitted against each other for
the Best Actress Prize while  Demola Adedoyin (October 1) and Kemi Lala Akindoju (Dazzling Mirage) are up against three others for the Best Young Actor category.
On why the nomination event was taken to the US, the Chief Executive Officer of AMAA, Dayo Ogunyemi, said it was to begin the concrete step of taking African cinema to the home of global cinema for a mutually and economically viable cooperation.
He said, “A unique aspect of the nomination event this year is that AMAA’s parent organization, the Africa Film Academy (whose advisory board Danny Glover co-chairs) is developing a slate of 10 films that will be co-productions between black filmmakers across the globe. The stories to be pitched within this slate will have a global appeal but will speak to the aspirations and stories of the global black community. Accordingly the attendees for this event have been selected with a view to ensuring the highest level of returns and enhancing the global value chain for black filmmakers.”
The awards night will take place in South Africa in September and is the first time it will be taken outside Nigeria.