Peace Anyiam-Osigwe
The upcoming 2018 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) will be held in Kigali, Rwanda.
The Rwandan government, through the Rwanda Convention Bureau and Rwanda Development Board, has in line with its pan-African and Africa integration agenda accepted to host the award ceremony.
It is the second time an AMAA event goes to Rwanda after its nominations gala event in Kigali in 2017.
According to a statement issued in Lagos by the organisers, the event will take place at the Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre on Saturday, September 22.
Nominations for the awards will be unveiled on July 21 at a media and industry event in Lagos.
German filmmaker and Berlin Film Festival curator, Dorothy Wenner, has also been announced as the president of the AMAA Jury for 2018.
AMAA, according to the founder, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, remains the biggest and most credible jury-based reward system for filmmakers and professionals in the motion picture industry from Africa and Africans in diaspora.
“It remains a fact that AMAA is the longest running Pan-African awards in the whole of Africa. Similar awards in film, music and virtual arts have come and gone. Since 2005 we have worked to keep and protect the integrity of the awards. This is why we can partner with Rwanda, a country where excellence and professionalism drive business and governance,” she said.
Ms Anyiam-Osigwe added, “The interesting thing about AMAA this year is that visitors especially Africans will not struggle to have visa as all visas will be processed on arrival. We want to thank President Paul Kagame and other African leaders that are making people’s movement within our continent very easy while we call on other African countries to have visa on arrival policy if we can’t remove visa completely. Our people will prosper and there will be shared prosperity when we can travel and do business and even for holidays easily within Africa.”