Mary Nnah
In line with its pan-African and Africa integration agenda, the government of Rwanda through the Rwanda Convention Bureau and Rwanda Tourism Bureau has accepted to host the 2018 edition of the African Movie Academy Awards in Kigali in September.
According to a statement issued in Lagos by the organisers, the event will hold at the Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre on Saturday 22nd, 2018.
The 2018 nominees for the awards will be unveiled on July 21 at a media and industry event.
German filmmaker and Berlin Film Festival curator, Dorothy Wenner has also been announced as the President of the AMAA Jury for 2018.
The award, which has been in existence since 2005 held the nominations gala event in Kigali in 2017 as part of the activities to expand the frontiers of unity and integration in Africa.
AMAA, according to the founder, Ms. Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, remains the biggest and most credible jury-based reward system for filmmakers and professionals in the motion picture industry from Africa and Africans in Diaspora.
She said, “It remains a fact that AMAA is the longest running Pan-African awards in the whole of Africa. Similar awards in film, music and virtual arts have come and gone.
“Since 2005 we have worked to keep and protect the integrity of the awards. This is why we can partner with Rwanda, a country where excellence and professionalism drive business and governance.
“The interesting thing about AMAA this year is that visitors especially Africans will not struggle to have visa as all visas will be processed on arrival.
“We want to thank President Paul Kagame and other African leaders that are making people’s movement within our continent very easy while we call on other African countries to have visa on arrival policy if we can’t remove visa completely.
“Our people will prosper and there will be shared prosperity when we can travel and do business and even for holidays easily within Africa.”
Lagos State Government of Nigeria hosted the 2017 edition of the awards at the Eko Hotel Convention Centre, Victoria Island while Bayelsa State, the oil rich state from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria hosted the awards for straight 10 years.
Global and pan-African brands such as the United Bank for Africa, Airtel, Ecobank, Sterling Bank, Skye Bank, First Bank, FCMB, Globacom, MRS Oil among others have sponsored the awards in the past.
AMAA recently hosted a social media training workshop in Kigali for young people as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project sponsored by Osigwe Anyiam – Osigwe Foundation, Ecobank and Rwanda Convention Bureau, which had tech resource persons drawn from Nigeria and Rwanda.
