Joke Silva accepts her best actress award

Article by Ogova Ondego
Published October 13, 2006

Whenever the Niger Delta features in the international press, it is usually for the wrong reasons: abduction of foreign oil workers, fighting between militant Ijaw youth and the Nigerian federal government forces, or the impeachment of a state governor.

Though the Niger Delta, the world’s third largest wetland, produces 90% of Nigeria’s export earnings, its people say they do not benefit.

However the focus on April 29, 2006 was not on this ‘historical injustice’ but on film. On this day, reports OGOVA ONDEGO, Africa’s populous nation hosted the Africa Movie Academy Awards, AMAA.

More than 103 international guests and 357 non-Deltans congregated in the 2500-seat Gloryland Cultural Centre in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, to witness the second edition of AMAA, the African version of the American Oscars. During the ceremony, presided over by Dr Jonathan Goodluck Ebele, the executive governor of Bayelsa State, awards were made in 20 categories with most awards remaining at home.

While Frank Nweke Jr, the Nigerian Federal Government Minister for Information pledged to award the best African film 1000 million Naira in 2007, Bayelsa State Government gave one million Naira each to the Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Picture that went to Andy Nwakolor, Kanayo O Kanayo, Joke Silva, and Rising Moon, respectively.

The N1 million, explained the governor, was “an appreciation of their achievement and to act as an inspiration to others to spur for higher heights in the industry.” AMAA founder and chief executive officer, Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima, announced the establishment of an Africa-wide film development fund.

Asked the necessity of this fund, Anyian-Fiberesima said it was to “assist Africa to fund her own films. This fund will make it easier for Africans to fund their films.” She said the fund would have US$1-2 Million to assist filmmakers for making films on digital technology.

PEACE ANYIAM FIBERESIMA

While AMAA would put US$50000 in the Africa Film Fund, she said, the Bayelsa State Government would also invest in it.

But why set up another African Film Development Fund when the African Film Summit held April 3-6, 2006 in Pretoria, South Africa, proposed that African Union sets up an all Africa Film Fund to assist filmmakers in Africa and the African Diaspora?

“I get worried whenever I hear that government is doing things,” Anyiam-Fiberesima said. “The private sector does it better.”

Anyiam-Fiberesima said the rationale for rewarding African films was necessitated by the desire to reward for Africans to “recognise and reward films in our own way and not rely on American Oscars that place our films in special ‘foreign language category’.

Being independent entities, Africa Movie Academy and Africa Film Fund will work separately but complimentarily, she said, adding that the Academy will concentrate on the technical and scripting aspects of film as these aspects are usually wanting in most African productions.

Nigerian Mahmood Ali-Balogun and 86-year-old Sudanese filmmaker Gadala Gubara received Lifetime Achievement awards for their contribution to the development of film in Africa.

“Having worked in cinema for 60 years as a script writer and a director; I am happy to have been given this award,” Gubara, who also worked as a pilot and military officer in the British army, said of the film award.

However there was disappointment when the Segun Oguntola-directed film, Arrou (Prevention), limped away with no award in all the 10 categories for which it had been nominated. Despite this Oguntola, the creative director of Vinasha Productions of The Gambia, described AMAA as a “monumental event that, with time, will become a major global event in the film industry calendar, just like just like the American Academy Awards, the Oscars.”

Born of Nigerian parents in Britain, Oguntola is a British citizen who resides in The Gambia with his Ghanaian producer wife, Nana Ama Offori-Atta. Theirs is the only independent film production house in The Gambia.

Zimbabwean Dorothy Meck of Afro Vision Entertainment was excited when the film she produced, Tanyaradzwa, ran away with two awards for Best Cinematography and Best Up and Coming Actress.

Asked what bagging two AMAAs meant, Meck said: “These came to me as a shock. The Best Cinematography award really shocked me. Our company is only two years old and this is our first film. I am shocked and I am so thankful to God because I feel that this is a God-given thing. Despite the lack of funds and inability to make a Zimbabwean feature film for eight years, these two awards inspire hope for Zimbabwe.”

Saying the last feature film made in Zimbabwe was Yellow Card in 1998, Meck said “Tanyaradzwa has come in to break new grounds and encourage the youth to make films and not just sit idle, waiting to see South African or Nigerian films.”

So far Tanyaradzwa has won four awards: The Calabash Award for Best Zimbabwean Film in 2005 given by the eighth Zimbabwe International Film Festival; the NAMA Award presented by the National Arts Merit Award in Zimbabwe and then the two from AMAA in Nigeria.

DOROTHY MECK, RICHARD MOFE DAMIJO, MONALISA M

Meck said she will now focus on film directing. “I really want to direct my next film. On Tanyaradzwa I was in charge of everything. I was there when the script was written and I had in lots of my input. I was there when they were directing and I put in some input. I did the first editing of it. I want to direct my next film just to show my capabilities. Sometimes it helps to do things this way. I want to direct and produce”

Anyiam-Fiberesima said AMAA is expected to raise standards of filmmaking not only in Nigeria but Africa as well.

Saying her aim is to make AMAA “the biggest and most respected award in Africa”, Anyiam-Fiberesima, who trained in law and political science and holds a master’s degree in copyright law and an MBA to boot, she added AMAA is “a reward system for Africans by Africans. AMAA is a way for us to come together as Africans to enjoy ourselves, to reward ourselves, to appreciate ourselves, and to tell African stories by Africans.”

Of the final 20 films that competed for prizes, five were from Burkina Faso (Sofia, directed by Boubakar Diallo), Cameroon (Gentle Solution, directed by Sylvester Keka), Gambia (Arrou, directed by Segun Oguntola), Ghana (My Mother’s Heart, directed by Ifeanyi Onyeabor), and Zimbabwe (Tanyaradzwa, directed by Tawanda Gunda Mupengo).

The Top 10 Nigerian films--out of the 150 that were screened--were Rising Moon by Andy Nwakolor; Secret Adventure and Family Battle by Lancelot Imasuen; Widow’s Cot by Dickson Iroegbu; Anini and Fragile Pain by Fred Amata; Day of Atonement by Teco Benson; and Eagle’s Bride by Ikechukwu Onyeka.

The five Indigenous Films, all Nigerian, were Madam Dearest (by Tade Ogidan); Agbara Obirin (by Adebayo Salami); Mfana Mbagha (by Teco Benson); Izza (by Saminu Mahmood); and Tari (by Aaron Garvey).

As to why there weren’t as many films from the rest of Africa as from Nigeria, Anyiam-Fiberesima said “Nigeria is the only African country where you have directors who have made more than 100 films because they use their own money. Some filmmakers in Africa make only one film in 10 years as they spend most of the time looking for funds.”

To ensure they get films from the rest of Africa, Anyiam-Fiberesima said AMAA will call for the 2007 film entries early besides setting up a secretariat in every African country to screen films and then send the selected entries to Nigeria.

“We want to get Africa working together,” said Anyiam-Fiberesima. I quite could not tell how Sanou Daniel Kollo’s feature film, Tasuma, came to be declared Best Documentary by AMAA judges. This, like Arrou that had failed to take any award in the 10 categories for which it had been nominated, bothers me six months later.

Mahmood Ali Balogun stresses a point

Ali-Balogun said he has been making films since his student days at University of Ife where he specialised in film and television production.

Among the non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations for him he does commercials and corporate films are UN agencies, Nigerian federal government, and oil companies.

“I began the journey into filmmaking as a photographer in the photo laboratory of the National Youth Service in Kano before moving to Lagos in the mid 1980s,” he said, adding that he had initially gone into acting before setting up a production company to make commercials and TV programmes.

Ali-Balogun was associate producer and director of Ripples, a13-episode TV series created by Zeb Ejiro in which he also starred and was screened on National Television Authority network all over Nigeria. He also directed Sparks and acted in Vigilante. “I did many pilot audiovisual productions but when it didn’t work I concentrated on commercials and documentaries,” he said.

As if to answer any one doubting his qualification to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, Ali-Balogun said, “I won this award because I am a film activist who works to get the film industry organised. I make meaningful films, maintain high standards and many of my colleagues don’t like me for this.”

Founding president of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts (NANTAP) in 1989, Ali-Balogun says this was “to project our cultural industry positively.” He headed NANTAP for six years before the home videos came on the scene in 1998.

Between 1993 and 1994, Ali-Balogun served as Vice-President of Independent Television Professional Association of Nigeria (ITPAN), a conglomerate of companies involved in independent television commercials that also served as a watchdog over what commercials were aired on television in Nigeria.

“Having studied film, I thought home video was inferior but I. changed my mind after I attended the Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso in 1999 and saw the kind of productions packaged on video that were shown there.”

Ali-Balogun is best known for his 27-minute, M-Net-funded HIV/AIDS film, A Place Called Home. His other productions include Temi Ni Tooto (Sincerely Mine in Yoruba), and Silver Lining, on single parenthood and adolescence, respectively.

He says he has also made five documentaries on child trafficking, child labour, HIV/AIDS, environmental pollution, traditional marriages, and river blindness.

“These are all advocacy films to engender positive change. Filmmakers have a social responsibility and cannot just work for art’s sake,” he says. He has been working on a film whose working title is Tango for two, for two years. “This film is about a girl who is raped on her wedding night. I am also working on a series of Nigerian cities like Kano and Ibadan.”

Among other audiovisual initiatives Ali-Balogun was involved in include Conference of Motion Picture Practitioners of Nigeria that he fronted with Amaka Igwe and Gabriel Okoye (Gabowsky), Film Cooperative of Nigeria (FCON) that was meant to handle distribution of Nigerian home videos, the steering committee of Motion Picture Council of Nigeria, and a federal government committee to put together regulation for film business.

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