CALLING ALL FILMAKERS: AMAA COMING TO NAIROBI

Africa Film Academy invites Kenyan filmmakers to submit their feature, short, and documentary works for consideration by the 7th African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA or AMAA Awards), the Premier Africa Film Awards.
AMAA is calling for nominations from the public and stakeholders in the film industry for winners in nearly 30 film categories. The deadline for all submissions is December 30, 2010; a late entry deadline is January 7, 2011. Nominations will be announced in Kenya in February 2011. Submission forms can be downloaded from the Awards Web site.


Lead actor in Hawa Essuman's Soul Boy.

The 7th edition of the AMAAs will be held in April 2011 and will be televised globally. Only films produced and released between December 2009 and December 2010 may be entered for this celebration of African cinema.
The African Movie Academy Awards were founded in 2005. Held annually in Nigeria, the AMAAs is without doubt becoming the most prestigious and glamorous African entertainment industry event of its kind on the continent. Evolving from a one day event -- televised live -- to a diarized annual African event, the AMAA Awards are now an established engagement platform for filmmakers, industry professionals and all creative industry stakeholders.


Hawa Essuman

The primary aim of the AMAA Awards is to facilitate the development and showcase the social relevance of African film and cinema. The awards are presented to recognize and honor the excellence in professionals in the African film industry, including directors, actors and writers, as well as at to unite the African continent through arts and culture.

HAWA’S SOUL BOY AT FIRST EVER AFRICAN WOMAN ONLY FILM FESTIVAL

Kenyan filmmaker Hawa Essuman will showcase her latest film festival sensation Soul Boy, at the first ever-African woman film festival.
Hawa is one of the 23 female filmmakers who will make history at the first Women of the Sun Film Festival (WoS Film Festival) which will feature 25 films from 15 African countries with 15 of the filmmakers present at the screenings.
The seven-day festival to celebrate women filmmakers in Africa will be screened at The Bioscope, Johannesburg, South Africa from September 2 to 9 and is staged in conjunction with the Goethe Institute, the Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) and the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC).
The WoS organissers say the festival offers a unique opportunity to see great films and to meet the exceptional women behind them.
“The time is ripe to change the widely held belief that filmmaking is a male domain,” says Eve Rantseli, Director of Women of the Sun. “Women in film have much to say and are saying it with unique vision and flair. The launch of this annual women’s film festival will be the start of getting women filmmakers and their works part of the mainstream.”


Soul boy is directed by Hawa, written by Billy Kahora and produced by Marie Steinmann and Tom Tykwer.
It is a story about 14 year-old Abila who lives with his parents in Kibera, one of the largest slums in East Africa. One morning the teenager discovers his father ill and delirious. Someone has stolen his soul, mumbles the father as he sits huddled in a corner.



Abila is shocked and confused but wants to help his father and goes in search of a suitable cure. Supported by his friend Shiku who is the same age as him, he learns that his father has gambled his soul away in the company of a spiritual woman.
The teenager doesn’t want to believe it and sets about looking for the witch. When he finally discovers her in the darkest corner of the ghetto, she gives him seven challenging tasks to save his father’s lost soul. Abila embarks on an adventurous journey which leads him right through the microcosm of his home town
Guests include Jyoti Mistry (South Africa), Tagreed Elsanhouri (Sudan), Fanta Nacro (Burkino Faso), highly acclaimed Algerian director Djamila Sahraoui, Zimbabwe’s award winning novelist and film director, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and the first Angolan woman to ever make a feature film, Maria Joao Ganga.