The Nigerian movie industry, Nollywood, once again dominated the African movie stage as it received the highest numbers of nomination for the 2017 installment of the Africa Movie Academy Awards.
In the general competitive categories, Nollywood earned 43 nods from a total of 136 beating its closest rival the South-African movie industry by more than fifteen nominations.
Nigerian films also recorded a surprising three nominations from four in the Best Animation category which had never been a strong genre within the Nigerian movie circle. The animations include Abiola Tayo-Afolabi’s ‘Gyrow’ about malaria.
READ ALSO: Full List Of 2017 AMAA Nominees
Izu Ojukwu’s ‘76’, Kunle Afolayan’s ‘CEO’, Steve Goukas’ ‘93 Days’ and Curtis Graham’s ‘Oloibiri’ earned multiple nominations in various categories including in technical and acting classes.
Also, Nollywood provides two contenders for the coveted award for Best Film in Izu Ojukwu’s ‘76’ and ’93 Days’ about the dark days when Nigeria battled the Ebola disease virus in 2014.
Multiple Grammy Award winner Angelique Kidjo goes head-to-head with Somkele Idhalama from ’93 Days’, Taiwo Ajai Lycet from ‘Oloibiri’, Theresa Edem from ‘Ayamma’ for the Best Supporting Actress prize for her role as the enigmatic Dr Zimmerman in kunle afolayan’s ‘CEO’.
Nollywood, despite all its critical commendations and international recognition even at the world stage when it headlined a segment of the Toronto International Film Festival, failed to provide a worthy candidate in the cinematography category.
Shaibu Husseini, a member of the AMAA jury, explained that the category considered a combination of camera works and lighting to determine who deserved a nomination.
“For us cinematography is beyond drone shots,” Husseini said in a telephone conversation with Entertainment News on Channels Television.
“We found out that some of the movies didn’t do well when you consider camera and lighting as a unit. Some of them to many static shots, while the ones with beautiful camera movement lacked quality lighting”.
