The 4th edition of the Ghana Movie Awards (GMA) finally took place on
30th of December 2013 at the Accra International Conference Centre. A
host of Ghanaian movie actors and actresses graced the occasion, from
both the local language and the 'abrofosem' movie circles.
Nominations for the various categories were made available about a
month ago. The nomination list this time did not separate movies made
in local from the English ones. In the previous GMAs , that was the
trend, this time around, they were all put together in the same soup.
Odd Thoughts
Apart from Kwadwo Nkansah (Lil Win), seemed no local movie person won
anything. Well, Kumawood has already awarded those in the local movie
a few days ago in the Akoben Awards so no sweat.
I don't know if it's the style or rule of the organisers of the GMAs
to always nominate and award a movie which has not been seen by the
public. A movie to be premiered on 1st January 2014 gets a nomination
about a month before it becomes public viewing , and subsequently gets
awards for various categories. This practice at the GMA always baffles
me since other movie awards like the Oscar Awards, which most people
in the movie industry around the world wouldn't deny they wish to have
in their statuette cabinet, have rules that the movie should have been
shown in cinema over a period of time. Well, that's Oscar Award rules,
they want people to see a movie before it gets nominated and awarded.
Ours is GMA rules, you get nominated and awarded before the movie is
even shown to the public to know why they were even applauding when
the movie won an award
As usual the audience to the show were not lively and always had to be
told to clap for performances. Well, maybe it's because the
performance were not that interesting to so it did not trigger the
audience to spontaneously put their hands together for them.
Did anyone see Mafikizolo of Khona fame perform ? Or I missed it.
Hope it wasn't a ploy to get people buy ticket
The winners on the night were the same old familiar faces, no
surprises. I guess the same people are doing the movies over and over
again, get nominated over and over again, and win over and over again.
A comedian, who came on stage, virtually said dry jokes. I always
wonder why stand up comedians always tell the audience to clap for
themselves. Is it that when they realised their jokes are not funny
and the people are just watching them without laughing, they tell them
to clap for themselves to lighten up the auditorium for them to have a
mental satisfaction that the clapping is for their performance. That's
some nice trick; I guess its stand up comedy lesson 101.
When the nomination list came out, there was a news report of a
producer/writer/writer lambasting the list, but was very interesting
to watching her receiving more than one award on the night with all
smiles(am sure she wanted to cry). I thought she would not have even
attended the event after what she was reported to have said. May be
the organisers sang the old school song "Cool it Now" to her
It seemed those called out to read out nomination list were reading
from a smart phone from one of the event sponsors. Some had difficulty
reading from that small piece of electronic device due to all that
lighting around the stage. Next time, they should provide them with at
least a 7" tablet pc to make the reading easier . As for the antics of
those reading the nominations and award winners on stage, the least
said about them, the better.
The large screen played a video of a nomination list for an award for
males, only for the announcer to call out a female winner, the
audience as usual went "ooooooo". Event director should up his game
because it was awkward watching the announcer try to defend herself .
It made me remember the washing powder TV advert of the little boy
saying "it's not my fault"
Least I forget, whose idea was to bring this Asian guy , I think from
Korea, who started "performing" when people were heading for the exit?
I guess it was to make people laugh on hearing him say some Twi
phrases talking about women's back side. To me, the phrase were
somehow derogatory to women, didn't find it funny. Most people at the
auditorium might not have heard him because as soon as the MCs for the
night thanked people for coming to show, they started walking out
only for the MC say they shouldn't go and that there was a last
performance. It was too late
In all, I will give the Ghana Movie Awards 2013 a mark of 55% . This
is the 4th event, I hope the 5th Anniversary will see improvement and
make it more interesting. I am tempted to say they are still learning
and it will be harsh to compare them to other movie awards which have
even crossed their 50th event.
God grant us life to see the next one in 2014.
