The AMVCA Can Be More Memorable Than Its Fashion Moments

It all starts with AMVCA's programming. The day before the main award event, the AMVCA hosts a cultural night, a vibrant evening celebrating indigenous cultures. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed to the nines, highlighting their cultural heritage and reinterpreting it as they see fit. Many have recently taken that assignment to theatrical and highly experimental levels. There are props on dresses and reimagined cultural attire. Similarly, the extravaganza doesn't let up on the awards night.

There are sculptural pieces and over-the-top designs. This year, for instance, there is, amongst many notable getups, a gown whose top half is engineered to rotate, a dress made from crystals shaped like water droplets, and another slim-fitted dress with a branch-shaped back made to give the illusion of a tree. The designs on the red carpet are impeccable, structurally intelligent, sometimes needlessly dramatic, and often the only thing most people are interested in tuning into the AMVCA for.

While each year outdoes the one before it, this escalating trend may not bode well for the AMVCA - a body created to amplify and honor the diverse and brutal work of making television and films happen across the African continent.

These iconic fashion moments have helped propel the AMVCA event into the mainstream, drawing various audiences to the award show. Still, this attention hardly lasts long enough for people to stick around. What if the films and television series under consideration each year are given as much buzz and excitement as the fashion moments? What if the award ceremony is incredibly well-produced and filled with notable moments that keep people returning specifically for it? The main awards show still suffers from a lack of tone. There are often no compelling storylines, no outstanding moments embedded within the ceremony itself to make it truly interesting and, by extension, unforgettable. These aspects of the AMVCA are all important and should sit side by side, complementing each other and offering more to viewers.

But this hasn't been the case for a minute.

On an institutional level, the AMVCA seems to consider these fashion moments as integral to the center of the awards ceremony as the films and television shows that are honored.

Each year, brands set up photo booths to capture the best-dressed guests. They even take it a step further to award the best-dressed guests of the night with cash prizes. It's a commendable marketing effort that has now overtaken the core of what the awards event is supposed to be about.

To openly incentivise one facet of the evening, one that isn’t related to filmmaking itself, when the AMVCA is still struggling to steady itself as a compelling film body capable of good taste and sound judgment, sends the wrong signal about what the organization truly cares about.

Many cash prizes set up to reward these fashion moments are often awarded to already monied celebrities whose outfits are known to cost a pretty penny. What if these resources were aggressively redirected into supporting more film and television categories at the AMVCA? What if they are channeled, instead, into improving the production quality of the show?

These financial rewards could equally go into marketing and promoting the films and television series under consideration, giving them more exposure and drawing increased attention. To be nominated for an AMVCA must mean something on a material level. And to win should be instantaneously life-changing. The way it once was for now industry heavyweights like Kunle Afolayan, OC Ukeje, Timini Egbuson, Adesua Etomi, Osas Ighodaro, and many others.

There needs to be re-strategizing and intentional work to get people to care more about the impact of the awards and less about the fleeting theatrics surrounding the ceremony. The AMVCA is responsible for getting people to care about the African film industry and the people who work in it.

While it already does this in some capacity, hosting the Young Filmmaker's Day and the Icons Night, much more work remains. Both events celebrate legends and emerging voices in the film industry and could use more publicity. They are hardly known, but could serve as an opportunity to get a preview of the future of the film industry and a look at how far it has come.

Additionally, if more people are drawn to the quality of the awards ceremony and its ability to reward the best talent and introduce audiences to the best film projects from the continent, they would be able to see and call out the existing issues prevalent within the AMVCA itself.

It would be easier to call out any disappointing portions of the event, which are often many. It would be easier to point out a lack of transparency around categories decided by juries, which critics have raised concerns about. It would be even easier to highlight that the body needs to do more to bring audiences closer to the films and television series they are asked to vote for. There is also the troubling and much-criticized issue of categorization. Because while the AMVCA aims to reward both television and film projects, it often finds itself incapable of making accurate distinctions between them.

As film writers Vivian Nneka Nwajiaki and Seyi Lasisi note, "Lumping film and TV together isn't doing the industry any favour in a climate when audiences are gradually getting attuned to the allure of TV productions. Separating them would allow for a wider pool of TV nominees, and in an era where audiences call for diversity in storytelling, especially in this age of streaming, a wider pool of TV nominees is a necessity."

There is no doubt that the AMVCA keeps its head towards the future, always finding ways to adapt to the times, but an excess of this threatens to leave the organization hollow and without strong, enduring traditions or standards.