Mimi Adani
Organisers of Golden Movie Awards Africa (GMAA) have disclosed that the 2020 edition of the prestigious awards ceremony, which was initially slated for May-June 2020, has not called been off.
According to the Executive Director of NMJ, Mimi Adani, organisers of the GMAA, the event has only been rescheduled to take place on a yet-to-be announced date on December 2020.
In an interview with NEWS-ONE on Monday, she said the change was necessary due to the ban on public gathering months ago as result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, she insisted that the Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t affected the awards ceremony in any way.
“Golden Movie Awards Africa is definitely coming off this year. It is going to happen in December. But for us as a team we are always pre-prepared. Our show was supposed to come off in May-June, so I don’t see how corona would have been an excuse for us. For us, it will happen normally and especially because they have taken off the ban on events. So we can actually have the event. So it is coming off in December,” she stated.
“We have already received entries way before corona came and during corona, we also received entries until we closed it,” she indicated while dispelling rumours that there are no movies to honour this year because not much works were done by filmmakers around the world due to Covid-19.
“The only different thing for us now is to make sure that when organising the event, we follow Covid-19 safety protocols of social distancing, wearing face mask and sanitizing. The event will happen because it is legal now; the government has lifted the ban. Precautions are the most important thing. Once they open the border, I am sure by December they will open and all the people who are supposed to fly in. They will fly unless they have a challenge,” she added.
“Covid-19 affected our businesses, but with GMAA we had already prepared. We already had sponsors on board and they have not withdrawn from the award. So for us, we are good but we have other things we do as NMJ as an agency for multinationals; we have challenges with activations because it has to be with crowds,” she added.
By Francis Addo