The second edition of the prestigious Ghana Movie Awards is set to take off with lots of surprises and a red carpet experience this weekend.

For the second time, the awards ceremony will be doling out two fresh cars to winners of the controversial Ghana Movie Award Founder’s Merit Award category.

This means some top movie stars will not only leave the auditorium of the Accra International Conference Centre with statuettes, but will also drive home a car.

GP Limited, organizers of the awards, has announced that this year’s award ceremony has been dubbed Kia Ghana Movie Awards. Therefore they will be giving out two Kia Rio cars to winners of the Founder’s Merit Award. Rana Motors are donating the cars. Last year, two Zoyte SUV cars sponsored by Feiya Engineering Limited were given to winners of the same category.

Industry stakeholders are currently gearing up for the event, which is a platform to honour excellence in Ghana’s film industry. It is being organized by G.P Limited, in collaboration with Multi TV’s Cine AFRIK Channel and Film Producers Association of Ghana. Movie enthusiasts are also waiting patiently to see which stars and movies will grab awards.

The ceremony is scheduled to take place on December 25 at the Accra International Conference Centre. Organisers announced to nominees who might not be able to make it to the event to contact organizers or 4syte TV or provide videos of themselves endorsing the award ceremony.

They are also stressing on the dress-code that actors and journalists should wear tuxedos or African prints, with the ladies dressing decently.

The year’s event is expected to be more exciting than last year’s. Movies expected to win awards include Leila Djansi’s ‘Ties That Bind’, ‘Adams Apples’, ‘Six Hours To Christmas’, ‘Somewhere In Africa’, ‘Single Six’, ‘Why Marry’ and ‘Masquerades’.

‘Ties That Bind’ topped this year’s nomination with a total of 21 nods including Best Picture, Best Story and Best Editing. Director Shirley Frimpong Manso’s ‘Adams Apples’ series came close with 20 nominations while Frank Raja’s ‘Somewhere in Africa’ followed with 14.

Shirley, as a producer, is ahead of the entire nominations with 24 nods for 5 movies- ‘Adams Apples 1, 2, 3, 4’ and ‘6 Hours To Christmas’. ‘6Hours To Christmas’ got three nods- Best Actor Leading (Christ Attoh), Best African Movie Collaboration and Best Actress African Collaboration (Damilola Adegbeti).

Other movies that got nominations include ‘4play Reloaded’, ‘Masquerader’, ‘Single Six’,’ Bed of Roses’, ‘Why Marry’ and ‘Grave Yard’.

Actors Chris Attoh, Yvonne Nelson, Lydia Forson, Ama K Abebrese, Omotola Jalade, Kimberly Elise, John Dumelo, Majid Michel, Rahim Banda, Eddie Nartey among others, were all nominated and are expected to pick awards. The award is supported by Lufthansa Airlines, Golden Tulip Hotel (Accra, Kumasi and Lagos), United Airlines and Brussels Airlines.