AMAA honour African cinema

The African Movie Academy Awards, popularly known as AMAA Awards, was held on April 20, in Bayelsa State in Nigeria. The star-studded ceremony designed to celebrate and reward filmmakers and other professionals in the industry across Africa and in the Diaspora; the AMAA has come to be known as Africa’s most prestigious motion picture award ceremony.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Here is the full list of winners:
Best Film: Confusion Na Wa (Nigeria)
Best Film In An African Language: Moi Zaphira (Burkina Faso)
Best Actor In A Supporting Role: Gabriel Afolayan – Hoodrush
Best Actress In A Supporting Role: Hermelinda Cimela – Virgin Magarida
Best Actor In A Leading Role: Justus Esiri – Assasins Practice
Best Director: Niji Akanni – Heroes And Zeros (Nigeria)
Best Promising Actor: Belinda Effah: Kokomma
Best Promising Actor: Joseph Wairimu: Nairobi Half Life
Best Short Film: Kwaku Ananse (Ghana)
Best Documentary: Fuelling Poverty (Nigeria)
Best Diaspora Feature: Stones In The Sun (Haiti/USA)
Best Diaspora Documentary: Fan Do Brasil (Brazil/Guadeloupe)
Best Animation: Adventure Of Zambezia (South Africa)
Best Film By An Africans Abroad: Last Flight To Abuja (UK/Nigeria)
Achievement In Production Design: Elelwani
Achievement In Costume Design: Blood And Henna (Nigeria)
Achievement In Make-Up: The Meeting
Achievement In Soundtrack: The Last Fishing Boat (Malawi)
Achievement In Visual Effects: The Twin Sword
Achievement In Sound: Nairobi Half Life (Kenya)
Achievement In Cinematography: Uhlanga, The Mark (South Africa)
Achievement In Editing: Heroes And Zeros
Best Actress In A Leading Role: Florence Masebe – Elelwani
Achievement In Lightning: Moi Zaphira
Achievement In Screenplay: Heroes And Zeros
Best Nigerian Film: Confusion Na Wa (Nigeria)
Lifetime Achievement Awards: Tunde Kelani, Chief Eddi Ugbomah, Sir Ositadinma Okeke Oguno (Ossy Affason), Ayuko Badu and Chief Pete Edochie
Special Recognition of Pillars of Nollywood: Emem Isong, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Kenneth Okonkwo and Film/Video Producers and Marketers Association of Nigeria (FVPMAN)
Special Jury Award: Ninah’s Dairy (Cameroon)

DStv launches BoxOffice Online

DStv has officially launched an online version of its popular BoxOffice movie rental service, available to anyone living in South Africa.

BoxOffice Online offers movie fans a wide selection of great new releases and popular classics that customers can rent and stream directly from the BoxOffice website, or rent and download via the DStv Desktop Player app – which is available to download here.

No DStv subscription is required to access the service. All customers need to do is sign up for a BoxOffice Account, which will allow them to use any of the flexible payment methods available to rent and watch movies online or via the DStv Desktop Player.

BoxOffice Online works in a similar fashion to the service on PVRs, giving customers a selection of movies that they can rent and watch as many times as they like for a 48 hours period. Once the rental period is up, the movie simply expires, meaning no returns and no late fees.

DStv BoxOffce Online currently offers a wide variety of movies available to rent, some of which are also available for rent on PVRs. As the service grows, customers can expect the catalogue to expand as new movies are added each week.

Rental prices range from R30 for New Releases to R10 for Classics.

Downloads via the DStv Desktop Player and streaming movies on the BoxOffice website are both compatible with most PCs and MACs. It is, however, recommended that customers check that their systems meet the minimum system requirements for the service.

BoxOffice Online is also open to all Internet Service Providers and, while not required, it is strongly recommended that customers access BoxOffice Online from a Wi-Fi network connected to an uncapped ADSL line to avoid high data bills from their network providers.

To find out more about BoxOffice Online, to sign up, or to see the movies that are Now Showing, please visit http://www.dstv.com/boxoffice.

Oscar Awards handed out

The Academy Awards, now officially known as The Oscars took place recently. Enough has been said about this star-studded affair so I am not going to waste any more time on the subject. However, I will give a huge shout out to Best Documentary winner, ‘Searching for Sugar Man’. The movie details the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late 1990s to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. 

Take a look at the rest of Oscar Awards 2013 winners:

 Best Picture - Argo
 Best Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis for 'Lincoln'
 Best Actress - Jennifer Lawrence for 'Silver Linings Playbook'
 Best Direction - Ang Lee for 'Life of Pi'
 Best Writing - Original Screenplay - Quentin Tarantino for 'Django Unchained'
 Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay - Chris Terrio for 'Argo'
 Best Original Song - Adele for 'Skyfall'
 Best Original Score - Mychael Danna for 'Life of Pi'
 Best Production Design - 'Lincoln' - Rick Carter (Production Design); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration).
 Best Film Editing - William Goldenberg for 'Argo'
 Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Anne Hathaway for 'Les Miserables'
 Best Foreign Language Film – ‘Amour’
 Best Documentary - Feature – ‘Searching for Sugar Man’
 Best Documentary - Short Subject - `Inocente`
 Best Short Film - Live Action - Shawn Christensen for `Curfew’
 Best Make-Up and Hair Styling - Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell for `Les Misérables`
 Best Costume Design - Jacqueline Durran for ‘Anna Karenina’
 Best Visual Effects - `Life of Pi`
 Best Cinematography - Claudio Miranda for `Life of Pi`
 Best Animated Feature Film - `Brave`
 Best Short Film - Animated - John Kahrs for `Paperman`
 Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz for `Django Unchained`

The 86th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

AMAA meets in Malawi

Malawi was recently announced as the host country for the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) Nomination Night. The awards, to be held on 15 and 16 March 2013, will be preceded by a training programme and the Africa Film Academy trademarked Training program "Film in A Box" that will commence the programme on 1 March 2013.

The Africa Film Academy will be offering training to about 500 people who wish to learn Film making for two weeks from the 1st to the 14th of March 2013. The training is free. The trainees will only have to register with the sum of 1000 Mk which is the equivalent of $2.50.

AMAA organisers are calling for filmmakers with the skills to teach in any area of filmmaking be it script writing, directing, producing, acting, set designing, production design, editing and sound engineering for assistance. Those willing to help AMAA develop this budding film industry should visit http://www.ama-awards.com/.

Malawi has a long and rich history of filmmaking. One of the great movies to come out from the country is ‘The Last Fishing Boat’ by Malawian movie producer and director Charles Shemu Joya created a lot buzz on the international festival circuit.

‘The Last Fishing Boat’ is about a once successful fisherman on Lake Malawi who is now struggling while his cultural values are being threatened by the expanding tourist industry. His son has become a tourist guide. The film is Joyah’s second production after the 2009 award-winning ‘Seasons of a life’ which was screened in over twelve international film festivals around the world and won seven awards.

Jozi Film Festival to wow city

This year’s Jozi Film Festival takes place from 15 – 17 February at three venues across Johannesburg: The Bioscope in Maboneng Precinct, Villa Arcadia in Parktown and an open air screening in Kliptown, Soweto where we are partnering with Kliptown Youth Program.

The festival opens at The Bioscope on the evening of Friday, 15th February. Guest speaker will be film director Akin Omotoso. Omotoso’s film Man On Ground was the opening film at last year’s festival and went on to win awards the world over. Our opening night film for 2013 will be announced soon.

  

A selection of feature films, student films, short fiction and documentaries will be screened at The Bioscope, Villa Arcadia and in Kliptown over the following two days, culminating in our closing ceremony that will be held at Villa Arcadia on the evening of the 17th of February. Comedian John Vlismas will once again host

the awards ceremony.

The top three films of the Vodacom Mobile Phone Film competition will also be screened at the closing event and the winners announced.

A Hebert Baker building in Parktown, Villa Arcadia as a venue has been made possible by our partnership with Etana Insurance. JFF extends our gratitude to Etana for their support of the festival over the last two years. Their energy and enthusiasm for the project is manifest in all our dealings with them. Our line-up for this year’s festival will be available on our website shortly.