President Banda to Host AMAA Nominations in Malawi

The President of Malawi, Her Excellency, Joyce Banda will host the world and African filmmakers and celebrities on March 16th, 2013 in Malawi, for the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) Nominations Party.

The AMAA Nomination weekend will run from March 14th-17th, during which the business community, the political class in Malawi, celebrities from across Africa and their counterparts in the Southern African country will be hosted to per-nomination concert, the nominations event proper and post-nomination party.

The Director of Administration of the organisation, Mr. Tony Anih, said the government and people of Malawi are very excited with the prospect of having movie icons and other players in the motion picture industry coming to the country for the nominations event.

According to Mr. Anih, the AMAA nominations party, is an event where films that make it into the 25 categories of the awards are announced ahead of the main award ceremony which is billed to hold in April this year adding that in the last six years,  AMAA has deliberately moved the nomination events from one country to the other within the continent.

''AMAA is a continental brand and reward system for motion picture practitioners. While the award ceremony usually takes place in Nigeria we always move the nominations event from country to country. It is our way to promoting the Africaness of the award and also celebrates our culture and diversity. We have had the nominations previously in Burkina Faso, Gambia, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. This year we decided to come to Malawi because of the level of popularity and acceptability of African films, most especially Nollywood and Gollywood movies in Malawi,'' said Anih.

Speaking further on the event to be hosted by the government of Malawi, Mr. Anih revealed that the Film-in-a-Box project of the academy has been endorsed by President Banda  and to this end, the Africa Film Academy will start a training programme from first week in the month of March targeted at the young men and women of Malawi who are interested in making a career in any aspect of film making.