TIPTOPSTARS

The Cameroon Academy Awards, Sonnah has negotiated the last bend towards the grand event billed for the night of December 29, 2013 at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel. This follows the publication, today, of the official and final list of nominees for this maiden edition. Sonnah is a multi-disciplinary recognition forum with prizes for grabs in various categories, including music, sports, fashion and designing, modeling, television and radio and movies. As usual, the movies category attracts more attention, perhaps because it is a very eventful sector with scores of ambitious people making great strides. To that effect, a lot of questions are posed each time a list of nominations is published. Many more questions come up when the awards are finally done. TIPTOPSTARS has been considering some of these worries and side-by-side with the publication of the Sonnah Awards list of nominees, we decided to provide clarifications. Our source was the CEO/founder of the Cameroon Academy Awards, Akim Macauley whom we reached for explanations. In this initial explanatory phase ahead of the great event, we had three questions for the entertainment promoter. From his Maryland, USA abort, Akim spoke with Editor Ernest Kanjo.

Ernest Kanjo: It has been said that Sonnah Awards is purely Cameroonian, yet we still see names of foreign contestants. Cameroonians have in the past not been so warm about this. Are you sure they will accept it this time.

Akim Macauley: Let me begin by emphasizing that the Team Sonnah is and has been working with a team of highly qualified critics. Awarding the best and nothing but the best is a goal we set from the beginning. We are not deviating from that vision. Our main focus is Cameroon and we shall be rewarding Cameroonians who have excelled in every given domain, movies inclusive. We have therefore made nominations from Cameroonian products submitted, following criteria set and have nominated Cameroonians. On the other hand, there are Cameroonian movies in which we have foreign artists collaborating. We have not placed them in contest with their Cameroonian counterparts – rather we have created a separate category for them. This happens with any other recognition platform and besides, collaboration is a well known feature in entertainment. So, this in no way has affected the Cameroonianness of Sonnah. Thanks anyway for pointing this out.

Ernest Kanjo: Some observers challenge the nomination of some actors and have alleged that awards organizers select the people they want. Does Sonnah identify with this - what qualifies an actor for a Sonnah nomination?

Akim Macauley: Nominating actors based on familiarity is out of question as far as Sonnah is concerned. For an actor to be nominated they must have met the criteria set by the board of directors and the jury must respect this guidelines. The movie from which the actor is nominated must be full length and must have been produced by a Cameroonian or having a Cameroonian as a lead or sub lead. The movie must have been reviewed by critics and submitted to the Sonnah Awards special critics for screening and review. Once the critics have reviewed the movie they go ahead and do the selection for nomination. Member s of the academy of movie pictures in Sonnah will vote and we come out with the nominee. The public’s vote counts just ten percent in the final decision. However, for the viewers’ choice, the public will have a hundred percent voting rights. Note should be taken that only those who meet the criteria will be considered and winning Sonnah will be by merit and nothing else.

Ernest Kanjo: Amongst the movies nominated in the various categories is Far, co-produced by Agbor Gilbert Ebot’s AGE and Mathew Eyong’s Cradle Rocks Productions Int’l. The movie is yet to be released. Certainly, some members of the public would cry fowl. How would you justify this particular nomination?

Akim Macauley: Thanks for bringing up this sensitive issue which has been one of the reasons for controversy along the years. This is simply because the public has not really been educated on how nomination for movies runs. A movie that has not been officially released can be nominated and or subsequently awarded. It is simple. A serious recognition platform requires a production to be nominated or awarded based by submission. If a movie is not submitted, it has nothing to do with getting nominated, let alone winning a prize. The jury or who whoever is scrutinizing the film works on the product that has been submitted for the awards. These films may later be released and put into circulation but they have the right to have them nominated or awarded because the films were submitted. Also, films that are not yet released benefit from enormous publicity and promotion when they are submitted for festivals. The more awards they win, the more anxious potential viewers become to watch them. Every filmmaker wants their work released, but if they have not found an appropriate structure through which to market the product they would still rely on festivals. These festivals help to popularize such productions, especially when they are good quality wise. This has been the case with Ninah’s Dowry which is yet to be officially put into circulation. So, nominating Far was just in line with the criteria set by the Cameroon Academy Awards.

Ernest Kanjo: Thanks Akim!

Akim Macauley: I’m grateful Ernest. We are always ready for more explanation.

Official nominationBarely two months to the maiden edition of the Cameroon Academy Awards (CAA), otherwise called Sonnah Awards, preparations have registered great progress. According to latest reports, the organizing team of indefatigable people is now almost ready with the nominations. “Nominations of the various contestants came from the public as regards the other categories, then for movies, we had films submitted for screening,” Akim Macauley, CEO/founder of Sonnah Awards told TIPTOPSTARS yesterday. “It’s been a lot of work putting things together but we are glad the exercise is moving on smoothly with respect to professionalism,” Akim told us further.

Once the team is done in the next 48 hours, the official and final list of nominees for Sonnah Awards will be made public on November 1, 2013. “We are ensuring that those who are nominated are truly the bests of the bests in a bid to promote not just quality work, but also to rightly reward deserving candidates and encourage others to strive harder,” said the Sonnah CEO.

Also speaking to this writer recently, one of the members of the organizing board of Sonnah explained that the jury is and will continue to work in all fairness and objectivity to avoid fingers being pointed at them at the end of the day. “To that effect, we have critically gone through the products submitted and will strictly go by the choice of the voters. We do not need to know X or Y and have a personal relationship with them, rather what we need is to see what they have done and work on that,” DR king Goerge Aboagye, a Ghanaian based in Delawe, USA said.

Reacting to Sonnah Awards, Beyhia Leonard Bruce, station manager of CRTV’s FM 105 in Douala lauded the initiative and even so because it was taking place back home in Cameroon. He however advised the organizers to be ready to put in enough financial and material resources, at least for this maiden edition if they hope to attract potential sponsors for such a huge assignment. “It is from the good results that potential sponsors will consider the seriousness of the project and come. However, I doff my hat to Akim and his team for the courage and ingenuity,” Beyhia who is an entertainment promoter of great repute told this writer on a recent edition of African Cocktail on Afrikka Radio.

Potential laureates of Sonnah Awards will be contesting in five major domains – movies, music, sport, fashion/modeling and Radio/TV. The various categories in these disciplines will be spelled out in an official release expected in the early hours of Friday November 1, 2013. Each of them will entertain five contestants.

Meantime, the Sonnah team leaves the USA soon for Cameroon for the last phase of preparations. The Cameroon Academy Awards was initiated to identify talented Cameroonians and their works, reward them and encourage others to work hard for the development of the country’s cultural heritage. It will be celebrated in a grand event billed for Sunday December 29, 2013 at the Hilton Hotel downtown Yaounde.

If you have visited Belgium’s metropolitan Antwerpen and haven’t had the chance to watch The Brothers United on stage, then you have missed out on one of the things that make that city tick. You may just want to go back purposefully for that – and if you do, there is no way you would harbour regrets. Witnessing such a show is a great experience, just like The Brothers United itself is an acapella band to reckon with.

Dust is yet to settle on the 2013 Nollywood and African Film Critics’ Awards, NAFCA that ended in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago. To laureates, it was a wonderful experience picking up a prize at the prestigious recognition initiative (also known as African Oscars) which has fast become every movie person’s ultimate dream.