Congrats to all the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards winners! The annual AMAA ceremony took place on April 20.
Below is the full list of winners, along with sneak peeks of select films:
Best Short Film: Kwaku Ananse (Ghana)
Best Diaspora Documentary: Fan Do Brasil (Brazil/Guadeloupe)
Best Animation: Adventure Of Zambezia (South Africa)
Best Film By Africans Abroad: Last Flight To Abuja (UK/Nigeria)
The African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) will take place on April 20 in Bayelsa. Ghanaian actress and British television presenter Ama K. Abebrese, Nigerian actress Dakore Egbuson and comedian AY will host the ceremony.
Africa’s most prestigious motion picture award ceremony, the AMAA annually celebrates and honors filmmakers and other professionals in film across the African diaspora. In addition to highlighting the best of African movies, foreign films from America, Canada, France, Germany, Guadalupe, Italy, Jamaica, and the UK also got nominations.
Watch trailers from top films and see the full list of nominations below:
Desmond Elliot and other Nollywood directors aspire to “grow beyond the walls of Nigeria.” They aim to showcase to the world films that break out of the typical Nollywood guerilla filmmaking style. Nollywood actress Patience Ozokwor knows all too well what types of films these directors are trying to outrun. Known as Mama Africa to her fans, Patience has been often stereotyped in films as the wicked African woman who sucks her teeth, fights, and plots evil at every turn.
New Nollywood filmmakers and directors are the subject of the New York Times Op-Doc Nollywood Heights – a short documentary on Nollywood’s origins and future. The 20-year old industry, which takes in half a billion each year, is one of the largest private sector employment sources for Nigeria and stands behind only Bollywood and Hollywood in revenues.
Director: Pascal Amanfo
Producer: Yvonne Nelson
Stars: Yvonne Nelson, Chris Attoh, Nadia Buari, Kofi Adjorlolo, Kweku Elliot, Tana Adelana
Many have feared the day that you would use the words “raunchy” and “Ghanaian movie” in the same sentence. But times are a’changing.
Following the lives of six characters who love, lust, and lie, Single & Married is sex without subtly, profanity-ridden, and says ‘Dick’ so often you would think it was someone’s name.
And that’s just the trailer.
So ashamed were some Africans who aided and abetted European Americans in the slave trade that the former kingdom of Dahomey changed its name to Benin. Yet, a simple change in terminology does not erase the era from historical memory. Or from the memory of the continent’s inhabitants.
Alloune (Sotigui Kouyaté), 65, a tour guide in a slave museum in Senegal is so haunted by the recollection of this dishonorable past that he embarks on an unconventional journey from his roots to find its branches – to trace the path of his people who were taken in the Atlantic slave trade and unite with these distant relatives abroad.
Alloune’s first stop is South Carolina. Immersed in the archives, he finds what seems to be a dead end. His relatives’ African names were long dropped in exchange for their slave owner’s names. But lucky for Alloune, white slave owners kept detailed records of their inventory – black bodies.
Baseball In The Time of Cholera is an excruciating emotional social justice documentary. How did Cholera become an epidemic in Haiti?
After more than 7,000 Haitians killed, the UN still denies responsibility for introducing the disease despite mounting evidence against its Nepalese peacekeeping force – though there hasn’t been any civil unrest in Haiti since the defeat of the French in 1803! Obviously UN’s $700 Million funding a year in Haiti for peace keeping is a hoax when people are dying every day from their Cholera.
Here really is the story of Joseph, a young baseball player – a victim of Cholera – having lost a young mother to it, and a Haitian lawyer fighting for compensation for the victims in Haiti.
Though their online launch and promotion about a month ago has fallen far short of the Invisible Children phenomenon, it should not distract from the film. This is a beautiful and emotional documentary that elegantly fuses activism and lyricism. And don’t forget to sign the petition to bring justice to poor Haitians here on Undeny.org
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Stars: Yahima Torres, Andre Jacobs , Olivier Gourmet, Jean-Christophe Bouvet
Venus Noire, The Hottentot Venus is a film on South Africa’s Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman. I knew of her, but never could have imagined how she was treated in the West, in the name of entertainment and science.
Yahima Torres played Saartjie, an extraordinarily difficult role to play for a black woman. The film presents the sordid desecration of a Black woman’s body. It cannot be recommended to black women, with a fragile body image or any sensitive souls.
Yahima Torres did an excellent job, showing that Saartjie Baartman, was intellectually aware of her dehumanization, despite the linguistic barriers of Afrikaans, English and French. Some of the most repulsive pseudo-scientific statements, on black women and the black race, are made. Initially, Sarah Baartman feels in charge, understanding that she is the one deceiving her civilized audience into believing that she is an African savage.
LM ARNAL is a multiracial writer who grew up without a family in Europe, at a time when mixed relationships were still taboo, and who migrated at a young age to the United States.
In Europe, after studying literature and political philosophy ARNAL found the weight of racism too thwarting and decided to travel as an adventurer.
The United States was a place where everything seemed possible, and it was easy for this soon-to-be-writer to learn many skills to be independent and remain free. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henry Miller, George Orwell, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, and Fassbinder were ARNAL’s first inspirations, then Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, and Edgar Poe, among many others.
LM wrote articles, mostly for the black press (Nommo, African Affairs, Ariztos, etc) and worked as a radio programmer for many years (to broadcast reggae, jazz, African music, and panels to discuss primarily issues concerning the black community).
For traditional Nigerian movies, Tchidi Chikere reigns supreme, in my book. Ini Edo, Mercy Johnson and Mike Ezuronye dazzle in this village tale, which is absolutely not generic. There are no obsessions with royal themes.
Ini Edo really shines as Azuka, who is grieving with her best friend, who lost her husband. Azuka goes out of her way, to comfort Buchi, even to the point of annoying her newfound husband. Azuka’s husband is Okereke, played by Mike Ezuronye.
Mike Ezuronye was an excellent choice, he had the ferocity to play the daring hunter. Okereke becomes a man caught, between two women. His character had to be strong, physically and mentally. Ironically, his greatest opponent is not one of the carnivore in forest, but flesh and blood from his own hut.
Mercy Johnson
Ini Edo
Mike Ezuronye
Ezuronye does not let up on Okereke’s charisma, which keeps the tale really engaging. For a man who wrestles leopards, it is disconcerting that it is women, he cannot tame. Okereke is blindsided by the women, of his life. Just when it looks like he has the upper hand, it turns out that he is the prey. And, Okereke fails to recognize that he is the one being hunted. Men are strong, but wisdom trumps strength.
Eye Of The Gods is a traditional Nigerian movie, exposing a leader’s descent into tyranny. Princess Ekenma played by Stephanie Okereke is entrusted with the task of listening to the spirit world and interceding on behalf of her community. Anything that could harm the community, she is to intercept and address the gods for her people.
Stephanie Okereke as Princess Ekenma was a good fit. Her towering height suited the high profile of her character, in the village. Though in close-ups, she exaggerated some of her facial expressions. The refreshing departure of this movie is that Stephanie Okereke deviated from her customary romantic lead, in Nigerian movies. One unclear part of Okereke’s character was the origin of Princess Ekenma’s office. The history of Ekenma’s position would have given us a better understanding of the interdictions that came with her position.
Say what you want about the UFC Championship and its unmatched promotion of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Call it brutal, and barbaric. Call it uncouth. Brand it savagery. Hell, reduce it to a society of animals blood bathing one another – but you can’t possibly deny this company one thing – it remains the only cage within which the art of fighting, short of killing, is finely displayed in its most vicious and yet most profound form.
And who dominates it? Anderson da Silva – the 37 year-old father of 5, from a country we know for its lush beaches and imperial salsa soccer style than its elaborately evolved ancient martial arts form – capoeira – which is a much preserved dynamic fighting technique originating from West & Central Africa. This is Brazil we are talking about.
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