By Akpet Obaji
Last Saturday recorded another leap for the Cross River film industry as practitioners in the film industry gathered once again to consolidate their gains in another round of Cross River Movie Awards, CRMA.
The event held at the Venetian Arena, Calabar dishing out a total of twenty five competitive awards, seven merits and three honorary awards to deserving film practitioners and supporters of the film industry in the state.
Earlier in a report, Cross River’s foremost online entertainment magazine, celebmision.com quotes the Executive Director of CRMA as stating that a total of 39 movies entered for this year’s award while 11 made it to the nominations. This year’s edition of the award is the second edition after its debut last year, 2013.
Delectable Cross River diva Shan George saw her new film ‘Finding Goodluck’ winning 8 awards in total and veteran actor Keppy Ekpeyong also bouncing back to winning ways.
Awards that were given out include best actor, male-indigenous (in movie titled Akan), won by Ime Bishop; Best supporting act, male-indigenous, went to Emmanuel Williamson (in Se Owo Otode); best supporting act, female-indigenous (in Se Owo Otode), was coveted by Ekanem Uya; while best act, male-English (in Locked Up), was clinched by Keppy Bassey Ekpenyong.
Scintillating actor, Bob Enyi carted home with best supporting act-English and new discovery-male all in movie titled ‘Finding Goodluck’; movie titled ‘Abina’ landed Sedater Saviour best supporting act-English; and Barbara Osai as new discovery-female from Occultic Brothers; while Angela Ovanero in ‘Folly’ carted home the best make-up artist.
Best editor went to Uwaogburu Nelson for movie titled ‘Folly’; best producer went to Shan George in ‘Finding Goodluck’; best light man went to Bukola Ayandoku in ‘Folly’; and best sound man to Isaiah Emona in ‘Finding Goodluck’; while both best director and best picture went to David Uro in ‘Finding Goodluck’.
Also Steve Soyida for the movie Beach 24 clinched best special effect; while one of Cross River’s late most versatile costumier, Banku Agbai was awarded best costumier for the film ‘Finding Goodluck’.
Shan George, who received Banku’s award, did so amid tears while reeling in her best memories with her as a sister and someone who looked up to her in the film making venture.
Best short film went to the film titled ‘Obe The King’; best documentary to ‘Tales by Sunset’; best animation picture went to ‘The Adventure of Lee and Boo’ and best indigenous movie went to ‘Akan’.
There were lots of red carpet interviews and performances from music crooners including Spydaman, T Bone, Real Pee, Harmony, Nick Ben, Fada Kane, among others; while comic reveres: Senator, MC Mbakara and Last Prophet took the center stage to crack jokes.
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