AMVCA: A Viewers Choice Award?
Although I wasn’t nominated in 2023. But as a past winner in 2017, I can fairly tell anyone who cares to read or listen that it’s not a viewers’ choice award because most of the movies entered have not been released in cinemas, on any online platform, or showcased on any Africa Magic platform for viewers to watch. They should remove the ‘V and C’ and make it the Africa Magic Awards, even if voting is not available in all categories.
As the name suggests, the award is supposed to be for movies shown only on the platforms of Africa Magic. Why bring in Netflix and Amazon Prime content when they don’t even show the movies on their platforms?
They should have come out with a channel showcasing those movies during the voting period so viewers could watch and vote if they wanted it to be called the “Viewers Choice Award”. You don’t ask people to vote for something they have not seen or watched. Voting can be funny, as friends and family members can buy airtime for anyone to vote as many times for their favourite actors as they want, thereby throwing away the place of a professionally selected jury.
Today, the award is becoming strange as the majority of the viewers expectations are focused mainly on the fashion of which celebrity wears what and are not concentrating on the movies nominated to win because a good number of the films nominated are alien to them.
Nevertheless, I would want to commend the organisers for the week-long training sessions, workshops, and seminars given to upcoming and practicing filmmakers in the prelude to the main event that caps the awards ceremony, which I believe will reactivate filmmakers to have a rethink on changing the narrative and innovative efforts when they next get on a film set.
The organisers need to take a second look, as this is not the first time I have made a suggestion.
Perekeme Odon is Public Relations Officer of Directors Guild of Nigeria, and 2017 winner of AMVCA, Best Make Up Artiste in Africa with the movie Oloibiri.
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