By Ogova Ondego
Published January 22, 2013

Malawi is set to host film practitioners and celebrities from all over Africa during the annual Africa Movie Academy Awards Nomination Night on March 16, 2013.

The announcement follows a visit by a delegation led by AMAA founder and chief executive officer, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, to the Malawian President Joyce Banda.

Tony Anih, the Administrative Secretary of AMAA, says the event will take three days (March 14-17) during which time the business community and the political class in Malawi and celebrities from across Africa will be hosted to per-nomination concert, the nominations event proper and post-nomination party by the government of Malawi.

“The government and people of Malawi are excited about the prospect of having movie icons and other players in the motion picture industry coming to the country for the nominations event,” Anih said in a Press statement issued in Lagos on January 22, 2013.

Anih said the annual AMAA Nomination Night is an event where films that make it into the 25 categories of the awards are announced ahead of the main awards ceremony which is held in April. Over the last six years, Anih said, the AMAA Nomination Night has been held in various places across Africa.

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“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 one country to another. It is our way of promoting the ‘Africanness’ of the award and also celebrates our culture and diversity,” Anih said. “We have had the nominations previously in Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. This year we have decided to go to Malawi because of the level of popularity and acceptability of African films in the country.”

Anih said the Africa Film Academy through which AMAA is held will start a training programme from the first week of March 2013 for young Malawians interested in the audiovisual media career after President Joyce Banda endorsed the ‘Film in a Box’ project of the Africa Film Academy.