Comedian AY steers the best Africa Movie Academy Awards ceremony yet! + Winners

2013 amaa hosts Adjetey Annang, Dakore Egbuson-Akande, AY and ma K Abebrese dancing azonto

Although the journey to and from the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) has been full of many lows for perhaps majority of guests, the actual ceremony has been my favorite since my three year fraternization with the awards . This had a lot to do with the amazing hosting skills of Nigerian comedian, AY  Makun who was joined by fellow hosts actors Ama K Abebrese, Dakore Egbuson-Akande and Adjetey Annang at  the Glory Land Cultural Centre in Yenagoa, Bayelsa on Saturday. 

With his in-your-face wittiness and spontaneous improvisations, AY combined well with Ama K, who lost her voice even before the show started; and paved the way for Dakore and Adjetey  to  charm guests with their graceful beauty and gentleness respectively. I particularly enjoyed the way AY created his jokes around the movie industry and his playful spin on events of the night. For me, easily he has been the best host for AMAA thus far.

But surely AY was not the only star for the fun-packed evening. The music content for the 2013 AMAA was amazing with fantastic performances from WAJE, Timi Dakolo, Mafikozolo, Flavour N’abania, as well as Tembo and his Groove Magic Band from Malawi. There was even more exciting entertainment with comedians like Gee Bone and Funny Bone who added to the rib cracking jokes by AY. And who can forget the touching, humorous and thought provoking speech from Hollywood actor and film maker, Mario Van Peebles.   Perhaps a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, the fun packed entertainment line-up overstretched the ceremony which had already started off with hours of long speeches and acknowledgements.  Although the performances were exciting, they should have been controlled to reduce the event from what easily was an 8-hour ceremony to at most 3 hours.

There were no ‘big winners’ on the night as the Jury spread the awards across board. ‘Heroes and Zeros’ won 3 awards including Best Director, Best Editing and Best Screenplay while ‘Elewani’ won 2 awards including Best production Design and Best Actress for Florence Masebe. The biggest prize of the night, Best Film went to ‘Confusion Na Wa’ which also won Best Nigerian Film. Check out the full list of winners.

Best Short Film: Kwaku Ananse (Ghana)

Best Documentary: Fuelling Poverty (Nigeria)

Best Diaspora Feature: Stones In The Sun (Haiti/USA)

Best Diaspora Documentary: Fan Do Brasil (Brazil/Guatamala)

Best Animation: Adventure Of Zambezia (South Africa)

Best Film By An Africans Abroad: Last Flight To Abuja (UK/Nigeria)

Achievement In Production Design: Elelwani

Achievement In Costume Design: Blood And Henna (Nigeria)

Achievement In Make-Up: The Meeting