‘Run Baby Run’ Picks Another Award

Run Baby Run, the feature film directed by Emmanuel Apea Jnr. of Revele Films in Ghana is still grabbing awards.

The movie picked the ‘Best Narrative Feature – The Pan African Programmers Merit Award’ at the just ended 17th edition of the Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF) held on February 5 in Los Angeles.

The film was nominated in two categories but won one. This entitles it to feature in a competition at the Atlanta Film Festival in the US in July.  

At a press conference held in Accra on Tuesday, Mr. Apea was hopeful the film would pick another award at that festival, and expressed the hope that it would be nominated for an Oscar someday.

Already, Run Baby Run which starred accomplished actors such as Kofi Bucknor, Kojo Dadson, Rama Brew, John Apea and a host of professional actors from England, prior to the PAFF award, had won four major awards at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMMA) in 2008.

These included Best Child Actress won by Nina of ‘Home Sweet Home’ fame, Best Screen Play, Best Pictures and Best Director.

According to him, “I was surprised that Run Baby Run went that far to win the PAFF award in particular, since the movies it competed with were high budget movies.” However, he believed Run Baby Run has a good storyline interpreted by good actors and actresses, with a good production team, saying those are the hallmarks that sent the movie far.

He thus thanked Ayuko Babu, the festival organizer and staff for a festival such as this which seeks to bring all Africans together to celebrate a great cultural heritage.  

PAFF is the largest independent Black film festival in the United States and at the recently ended edition PAFF showcased more than 100 of the finest new films from the US, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Latin America, and Canada, made by or about people of African descent.

In attendance at the festival were acclaimed Hollywood stars such as Eriq LaSalle (ER), Michael Beach (Soul Food), Sophie Okenedo (Hotel Rwanda), Blair Underwood (Dirty Sexy Money) and a host of  international and local filmmakers as well as civic, business, and community leaders.

The night, it seemed, was for Ghanaian films because the ‘Best Narrative Short’ went to a US based Ghanaian, Edward Osei Gyimah, for his film ‘Kwame”, while an ‘Honourable Mention Award’ went to US based Filmmaker Hezekiah Lewis for the documentary “Warrior Queen”, an account of Yaa Asantewaa.

By Francis Addo