‘Charles, you know you have to write a
review about this year’s AMAA or you will be seen as biased, not after
you have reviewed the AMVCA’ a prominent Film Maker said to me as we
arrived Yenogoa by road. I had already made up my mind weeks before to
do such, even if I was in a somewhat precarious position; my movie ‘Alan
Poza’ was nominated in two categories . If we didn’t win anything ( and
eventually we didn’t) some might misconstrue my review as ‘sour grapes’
rather than the honest and unbiased opinion I have chosen to write.
‘Frankly, my dear,
I don’t give a damn’, says Clark Gable in the movie ‘Gone with the Wind’ and I align with his phrase.
With all sense of propriety, I will not
in anyway compare the two awards. That is left for the viewers and
readers to do but I will only make appropriate objective commentaries as
witnessed by me.
The show started with a group of dancers
who gave a good account of themselves in their choreography of the AMAA
theme song. The dancers captured the essence of Africa in their dance
and the theme song itself had a pulsating multi-African feel to the mix.
This was followed by a brief reel of late Nollywood actors who passed
on in the last year.
The compere of the night AY, the stand
up comedian, made an entrance in a Power Bike and cracked our ribs with a
few hilarious jokes. It was a good thing that AY was on board for the
show as an otherwise lukewarm event would have turned out to be tepid if
not for his rib-crackers.
There were a lot of the ‘Notice Me’
people, especially the ladies in their evening gowns, strutting all over
the hall, much to the amusement or annoyance of many people. I don’t
know if they were looking for seats or if they were all over the place,
ensuring that we all got a glimpse of their evening outfits. Of course,
some of the outfits were eye-popping or head-shaking, depending on one’s
point of view. I remember AY threw a barb at one of the actresses from
the ‘Asaba Nollywood ’ slant, when he called her ‘Lady Gaga’ because of
the huge, screaming mop of coloured wig she had on. The actress in
question, either good-naturedly or daftly, waved at the recognition.
‘Who’s that Lady in the glittering pink
gown?’ asked one of the foreign visitors who sat behind me. ‘She should
sit down a bit! Blimey!’ He was pointing to Ibinabo Fiberisima, the
Actors Guild President, who seemed to be all over the place. She wasn’t
the only one. Others with a sense of self-importance equally struggled
for strutting space.
The Executive Governor of Bayelsa State
gave the opening speech. I thought the Federal Government in the
‘Rebranding Nigeria’ campaign had jettisoned all the protocol
recognition intros by Government officials? His Excellency spent about
ten minutes ‘recognizing’ those present in the hall, that it was a
wonder he didn’t acknowledge the presence of the Hall Cleaners!. And his
accompanying speech was so long that it was more of a drone after a
while. In the speech which took the better part of thirty minutes, he
made some good points about encouraging the film industry and also
building a Film City Centre in Bayelsa to boost the Tourism Potentials
of the state. Governor Dickson has an authoritative booming voice and
boring aspects of his speech were made up with his style of speaking,
which some people found fascinating.
If the Governor’s Speech seemed
drone-like, then the next speech by the South African High Commissioner
takes the biscuit for ‘boring’.(Whoops! There goes my SA visa, I am
sure!) The Diplomat just kept talking and talking, sometimes in
inaudible or inarticulate tones, that a lot of us in the hall mercifully
found solace in our smart phones for company. He spoke for about twenty
minutes and just as we all were heaving a sigh of relief, yet another
Speaker climbed the podium! Chai! We wan die!
It was the Culture and Tourism Minister,
High Chief Edem Duke, who is a very powerful speaker. This night was no
exception but he must have been bitten by the ‘long speech’ bug and
spoke ex tempore for close to twenty minutes as well.
Could someone please tell the AMAA
Producers that next time, speeches by Government officials should not be
more than five minutes per person and not more than two, if it comes to
that?
Peace Anyiam Osigwe gave her own speech
in subdued tones and the reason for that became clear when she asked us
all to observe a minute silence for the late Entertainment Lawyer, our
dear good friend and brother, Efere Ozako who passed on a couple of days
before AMAA. That brought tears to the eyes of many in the hall who
knew and loved Efere.
The co-compere, Ama K Abebrese came up
on the stage to join AY. Her voice was hoarse and grating on the
microphone and she apologized for losing her voice to the audience. It
was difficult to judge her outing as a compere because of her lost voice
but one would give her kudos for the bravery of carrying on, despite
this setback.
The performance by a South African
Flute-blowing group, though interesting, was marred by annoying
technical issues which was intermittent the whole night for many
performing acts. One of the Flute artistes got the hall reeling in
laughter when he said he learned a new dance called ‘Azuntu’, a
mis-pronunciation of ‘Azonto’. !
The special guest of AMAA this year was
acclaimed Hollywood Black director and actor, Mario Van Peebles. I am
one of those who grew up inspired by Mario’s movies and he came on stage
dressed in a white Kaftan ,all hyper and warm. He gave a great,
motivating speech which stirred a lot of hearts. AY took a jibe at him
for wearing odd green sneakers with his Kaftan!.
There were performances by Waje, who has
improved tremendously in her stagecraft and Timi Dakolo who was the
star of the night. My God! There isn’t a voice in Nigeria like Timi’s
and there isn’t an inspiring singer and performer in his class like him!
Timi had the crowd clapping on and on and got both visitors to Nigeria
and citizens all up, all our hearts swollen with pride, as he rendered a
special song of his for Nigeria. Timi Dakolo is good! An ace singer.
Funny Bone, the comedian was quite
hilarious. He was followed by the ‘son-of-the-soil’ comedian, G-Bones,
who also maintained the comic tempo.
Dakore Akande came up on stage as the
third compere of the night. She was elegant in her looks and tried to
make the most of the glitches in the programme with her Ghanaian male
co-compere. And there were glitches! Microphones going off, sound
systems and teleprompters messing up, and other avoidable impediments.
One commendable innovation AMAA brought
this year, was the introduction of many of the new, promising actors of
the so-called ‘new Nollywood’ school, as award Presenters. To me, that
was quite symbolic. A perfect suggestion that as Nollywood loses its old
guard, a fresh and vibrant pool of new talents are in the wings,
carrying on with the dream. It was heart lifting to see the likes of
Beverly Naya, Belinda Effah, Omoye Uzamere, Kemi Lala Akindoju, Wole
Ojo, Ivie Okudaye, Uti Nwachukwu, OC Ukeje an many others up on the
podium.
The last performance for the night was
by Flavour who got the crowd dancing with his hit songs. Curiously
though, he strode off stage abruptly as his song was coming to an end as
if to say ‘I don do wetin una pay me for. I don go’. That was the cue
many in the hall needed to also take their leave and the last two
categories had a half-empty hall as many tired guests had left.
The show ended at a few minutes past
four in the morning! A seven hour event, which with proper planning,
could have been wrapped up within three hours! There’s still a lot to be
done in that regard by the AMAA producers. There were needless pauses
and long waits in between presentations and a few people were nodding
off to sleep in the hall when the show dragged on and on.
There’s a feeling of Déjà vu one gets
each time one attends the Africa Movie Academy Awards in Bayelsa State.
The State has no airport and so, the guests are transported by road from
the Port-Harcourt airport to Yenogoa in a two hour journey. I would
advise AMAA to contract a central logistics company or directorate to
handle the grueling logistics for future events, instead of the
weary-eyed officials we see yearly who run helter-skelter to sort out
logistics issues, to their credit.. It is about time to outsource that
department and that’s all I would say about that, with all brotherly
love to Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, my good friend and sister, whose vision for
AMAA has been sustained for almost a decade.
It is heart-warming to note that Bayelsa
State has built more hotels since the first edition of AMAA held in
Bayelsa nine years ago, with most of the hotels built as a tourism boost
to AMAA. The brand image of Bayelsa State is majorly intertwined with
the AMAA brand but there seems to be a major disconnect between the
organizational organs of both parties. There is a lot of work to be done
in that regard but I must commend Bayelsa State for being a faithful
host of the event these past years, even though there’s much to be
desired. Building an airport in Yenagoa, for starters, is long overdue.
Mercifully, The Governor promised that it would be done by next year, in
his speech.
If AMAA aspires to be a world class
award ceremony tailored after the Oscars, as most of its screening and
jury processes are, then it should ensure that the stage management,
logistics and event production for AMAA must be at per with its
aspirations. Next year, AMAA will celebrate ten years. A ten-year old
organization such as AMAA cannot be taken lightly anymore. It is an
institution and can only get better if many of its activities are
properly outsourced to the right people or companies. The movie industry
in Nigeria and parts of Africa have supported AMAA wholly these past
few years and will continue to support it but its about time AMAA takes a
long look at itself and surpass our expectations. AMAA is no longer a
solitary, annual event for the African Film Industry. It has
competition; and one which went all out to make a point in their first
outing too! Very soon, we all would either be looking forward to
‘AMAA-zing’ awards or one with a touch of ‘magic’ which could polarize
our loyalties if we all don’t get it right.
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