Nigeria has received 52 nominations for the Africa Movie Academy Awards, Africa’s most prestigious awards for filmmakers.
The nomination, which took place last Saturday in Banjul, Gambia, saw South Africa coming close with 45 nominations.
Ghana followed with 17 nominations while Kenya has 14.
Uganda has five, Tanzania has three and so also Algeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.
There were also nominations for films linked to the Diaspora in America, Canada, France, Germany, Guadalupe, Italy, Jamaica and the UK.
AMAA received 328 entries from across Africa, up from 220 in 2011. This includes 134 feature films, 88 short films, 57 documentaries and six animations.
Forty-three entries came from Africans in the Diaspora, with the other entries coming from 23 countries across the continent.
South African surfing film, Otelo Burning, directed by Sara Blecher, scooped the most nominees (13), followed closely by South African film noir, How 2 Steal 2 Million (11), and Nigeria’s Benin-set historical epic, Adesuwa (10).
Ghana’s civil war film, Somewhere in Afric,a has seven nominations, as does the Nigerian-South African xenophobia-the med co-production, Man on Ground, while Kenya’s Rugged Priest has six.
Dr. Asantewa Olantunji, director of programming of The Pan African Film Festival, headed this year’s jury, which included June Giavanni, programmer for Planet Africa at The Toronto International Film Festival; Keith Shiri, founder and film curator at the London festival, Africa at The Pictures; Dorothee Wenner, a curator at The Berlin Film Festival; Shaibu Husseini, an actor, dancer and The Nigerian Guardian arts journalist; Steve Ayorinde, MD/Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Mirror; Ayoko Babu, executive director of The Pan African Film Festival; Dr. Hyginus Ekwuazi, a film scholar and critic; and directors Berni Goldblat and John Akomfrah, OBE. Only films produced and released between December 2010 and December 2011 were eligible.
The winners will be announced at a glittering ceremony on April 22, 2012, to be hosted by Heroes star, Jimmy Jean-Louis.
For the first time, the awards will be held in Lagos rather than Bayelsa in Nigeria.
“Our theme this year is Africa Rising,” says founder, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe.
She said: “Africa’s economies are consistently growing faster than those of almost any other region of the world and our film industries are following suit. With the success of last year’s AMAA winner, Viva Riva!, all of a sudden there’s this great excitement about the potential of the African film industry, which isclearly demonstrated in this year’s diverse nominees.”