Filmmaker Femi Odugbemi’s ‘Bariga Boy’ on Wednesday, May 19, won the AfroPop Prize for Best Film at the 5th Real Life Documentary Festival in Accra, Ghana. The award is the third honour the film on Segun Adefila and the Crown Troupe of Africa has won recently. It won the Best Documentary Prize at the 2010 AMAA Awards in April and won in the same category at the Abuja Film Festival.
Eminent academics, literary, film and art personalities attended the award ceremony held at Goethe Institut, Accra. They include Manthia Diawara, professor and head, Literature and African Studies, New York University, who launched a book on African cinema at the occasion; Ed Gurrero, professor of Film Studies at New York University; filmmakers Christine Choy, Yeman Demissie from Ethiopia and Stephanie Black.
Chair of the ceremony, the poet Kofi Anyidoho, noted that the festival “is dedicated to documentary films based on the histories, peoples, heroes, cities and locations of African and diasporic communities. It brings together filmmakers, scholars, students and film enthusiasts to one of the greatest historic Pan-African cities in the world – Accra.”
Anyidoho added that the festival is on its way to becoming Africa’s major forum for the production, cataloguing and exhibition of documentary film records of African and African-diasporic subjects in global history because of the dedication of its founders, Lydie Diakhate and Awam Amkpa.
The winner of the AfroPop Prize sponsored by the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), United States, paid tribute to Adefila and the Crown Troupe in his acceptance speech. He noted that Adefila is a model worth emulating by other youth because of his passion for advocating social change with his works despite operating in a hostile environment. Odugbemi reiterated that, “for Africa to catch up with the world infrastructurally, politically and economically, artists of all shades must stand up to be counted. Our talent must speak out to challenge power and inspire change.”
Co-founder and co-director of the festival, Diakhate lauded the Nigerian filmmaker’s win. “I am very happy that Femi Odugbemi got the AfroPop Prize. He did a beautiful work and I really enjoyed the way he portrayed a young gifted Nigerian artist and his neighbourhood.”
She added that, “The awards are for me very important because it is a great opportunity for the festival to give recognition to contemporary African visual productions.”
Other awards presented at the festival which started on Sunday, May 16 and ended on Thursday, May 20 were the Walter Mosley Prize worth $5,000 won by Yemani Demissie and Joe Ampha Prize which carries a cash prize of $1,000. Young Ghanaian student filmmaker, Elizabeth Coleman, won the prize for her short film ‘Camp Healing’.
Several documentary films including John Akomfrah’s ‘The Genome Chronicles’; Senegalese Ousmane Mbaye’s ‘Mere Bi’ and Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer’s collaboration, ‘Kinshasha Symphony’ were screened at the festival. ‘Twilight Revelations’ by Ethiopia’s Yemane Demissie and ‘Africa Unite’ by Stephanie Black were also shown.
With this win, Odugbemi’s ‘Bariga Boy’ will likely be shown on ‘AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange’, a US based public TV show featuring independent documentaries and short films about life art and culture from the contemporary African Diaspora. The show is hosted by actor Idris Elba and the winner of the AfroPop award is offered a three-year contract worth up to $8000.
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