The CEO of the African Movie Academy Awards, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe displayed a lot of emotions at a press conference ahead of the award ceremony tonight, when she explained that she has no interest in selecting who wins the awards. She seemed frustrated by the constant criticisms in the media surrounding nominations and eventual winners. She particularly addressed reports that she already knows the winners for this year’s award ceremony and that she has handpicked her close friends in the industry to win the awards.

She commented that she doesn’t understand why certain people choose to tarnish the reputation of the award scheme, which aims to promote African cinema within Africa and to the world. She commented that she has observed people posting insinuating comments on Facebook that suggest among other things that she is doing the awards just for the monetary gains. She explained that she has sacrificed a lot of her livelihood in the past 7 years to sustain the AMAAs and that if she wanted to do something that would bring her money, it would be through some other venture.

The almost teary Peace called on the media to rather promote the awards so it would grow into something that the whole of Africa would be proud of. She said she was fully aware that Africans like to bring people down but asked for a change in behavior, calling for Africans to support each other.

Meanwhile the jury for the African Movie Academy Awards told the press that it is impressed with the entries for this year in terms of the levels of creativity and technique. They explained the selection processed from nominations to the selection of winners, adding this year 320 films were submitted from across Africa and out of that number The College selected the top 30 films. The jury also explained that this year there would be no award for Best Animation because only two animated movies were submitted but neither of them was outstanding enough for consideration.