The Africa Film Academy (AFA), the organisers of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), has called for submissions ahead of its 19th edition.

The organisers of the annual award ceremony also unveiled plans and activities for next year’s AMAA during a media parley on Thursday at the Radisson Hotel in GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

The event had in attendance Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, founder and president of AMAA; Kingsley James, chief operating officer (CEO) of AMAA; and Shaibu Husseni, head of AMAA’s college of screeners.

According to Anyiam-Osigwe, the decision to unveil the activities ahead of AMAA 2023 was deliberate and a move to involve every film practitioner in Africa and the diaspora.

The organisers also announced a call for entry ahead of next year’s award ceremony.

The early call for entry, Anyiam-Osigwe said, is to enable more film practitioners across Africa and the diaspora to submit and participate in the 19th edition.

“This is an avenue to officially rest the 18th edition of the AMAAs under the supervision of the Africa Film Academy and begin the journey to 2023. We are currently calling for entries in all categories and this will last till March 2023,” she said.

“We are now accepting submissions for the 19th Africa Movie Academy Awards. The Africa Film Academy invites filmmakers to submit their feature, short, animation, and documentary work for consideration in nearly 30 film categories of the awards.

“One of the aims for creating AMAA is to provide and create a networking platform and avenue for African filmmakers and practitioners to interact while getting rewarded for their creativity, uniqueness, authenticity and professionalism.

“We are not a popularity contest, we are a professional contest that rewards professionalism, hence, why AMAA has two faces to it, which is the critical look and judgment of professionalism and the glamorous part. I continue to hold dear the critical arm working behind the scene while our COO, James handles the glamorous part, which is the look and feel of the awards ceremony.”

On his part, James said Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos state governor, will return as the host for the 19th edition of the AMAAs.

He added that other activities — including human capacity building by the AFA, jury’s session, nomination unveil, and one week-long festivities that will herald the 2023 edition — will be unchanged.

“For us, our announcement of the lined up activities for AMAA 2023 is a deliberate action from our end. We will be having two or three activities every month till the end of the year and these will include human capacity building under AFA, screenings of films and the awards ceremony,” James said.

“We would be screening the five biggest films in AMAA 2022 to the media so they can also understand why these films were nominated and won big. We will be having a monthly dialogue with practitioners and creatives.

“As I have noted, the awards ceremony will hold in Lagos under the supervision of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, we would also be having another round of film in a box while the nomination unveil will come up in August 2023. For the AMAA proper, we will be having a 7-days complete creative week that will encompass music, film, fashion and arts.

“So I can tell you it’s a tightly packed year for us at AMAA and we can’t do it all alone without the support of the media.”

Husseini, who spoke on behalf of AMAA’s jury, and college of screeners, said, “We look forward to getting great films from African film practitioners. We look forward to feature films, animations, documentaries and more. I would like to reiterate that the country of film is different from the origin of film. We don’t encourage films that don’t have Africans or filmmakers of African descent. Films can be uploaded on film freeway.

“We would be enlarging the scope of our college of screeners from 12 to more this year. These are the people that will screen films for the jury while the president of the jury is responsible for films that get nominated. We don’t do part two during screening of films or judging films at AMAA. We are professional and take our roles very professionally.”

Anyiam-Osigwe also lends credence to Husseini’s points, saying, “I have no influence whatsoever on the screening committee, governing body or the jury of AMAA. AMAA is a professional niche reward system and you will find out that most of the films that won at AMAA 2022 and in previous years, go on to do very well at globally recognised film festivals and awards.”