"Charles, you know you have to write a review about this year’s AMAA or you will be seen as biased, not after you have reviewed the AMVCA" a prominent Film Maker said to me as we arrived Yenogoa by road.
I had already made up my mind weeks before to do such, even if I was in a somewhat precarious position; my movie ‘Alan Poza’ was nominated in two categories . If we didn’t win anything ( and eventually we didn’t) some might misconstrue my review as ‘sour grapes’ rather than the honest and unbiased opinion I have chosen to write.
‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’, says Clark Gable in the movie ‘Gone with the Wind’ and I align with his phrase.
With all sense of propriety, I will not in anyway compare the two awards. That is left for the viewers and readers to do but I will only make appropriate objective commentaries as witnessed by me.
The show started with a group of dancers who gave a good account of themselves in their choreography of the AMAA theme song. The dancers captured the essence of Africa in their dance and the theme song itself had a pulsating multi-African feel to the mix. This was followed by a brief reel of late Nollywood actors who passed on in the last year.