This year the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) has partnered with StarTimes, the biggest pay-tv company in Nigeria, hosted the AMAA-StarTimes Short Film Festival (The Shorts).
The Event is organized to motivate young and promising filmmakers on the African continent by providing a bigger platform for talented young people to succeed.
The festival has shortlisted over 200 short films. Selected from over 500 entries across Africa, the short films were aired daily on the ST Nollywood Plus channel on StarTimes at 8 pm. The pay-tv company has also added the films on the StarTimes-ON mobile app to run throughout the festival period.
Recently in June, StarTimes, in partnership with The Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), rewarded outstanding short filmmakers across Africa. Held in Lagos, the award ceremony had industry experts in attendance, including Femi Odugbemi, Tunde Kelani, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe of AMAA, Femi Adebayo, alongside StarTimes team led by CEO, Alex Jian, and content Director, Viki Liu.
Edmond Tawale from Uganda emerged winner of the special prize for a documentary with the movie titled Ateker. Edmond got prize money of $1000.
The outstanding short film winners are Frank Abasiekong from Nigeria as 2nd runner-up for his short film titled Room 10; Frank Dzikonu from Ghana as 1st runner-up for his animation movie titled Sad Story of Kojo; while Enobong Nkanta from Nigeria emerged as the winner for his short film titled Mama’s Song.
The 2nd runner-up got $1000, the 1st runner-up got $2000 and a mobile phone; while the winner got $3000 and a laptop.
Speaking at the Award ceremony, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, Founder of AMAA said, “I’m delighted with this initiative to reward our young filmmaker and happy with the synergy StarTimes is having with the movie industry. Filmmakers need to understand the process of filmmaking. We approached StarTimes for partnership and StarTimes is willing to help us nurture these resourceful people. We have to clear the stage for young and upcoming filmmakers. If we catch them young and structure them properly, it will help the growth of having better films being made along the way.”
Also speaking, the CEO of StarTimes, Alex Jian said, “We are here to award excellence, creativity, hard work, and originality. It’s our goal to provide a bigger platform for talented young people to succeed on their dream roads. StarTimes has been deeply engaged with Nollywood since last year, starting with the production of Ile Alayo Season 1, a great work directed by our friend and ambassador Femi Adebayo.
During the process, we noticed the great potential of the whole industry, and we are surprised by many young content creators. They are passionate, hardworking, and full of inspiration. As a Pay-TV platform rooted in Africa, StarTimes aims at providing the best content to its audience. And we are very willing to support content creators in all kinds of ways because when they grow, the industry grows; if they succeed, we succeed.”