M-Net wants more content from Southern Africa

While Malawi made history by winning a first ever Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCAs), submissions from the region remain low.

Joyce Mhango-Chavula’s production, Lilongwe, won the continental award for the best Southern Africa film category, a third for Southern Africa after South Africa and Zambia.

Otherwise, the story was the same as Nigeria dominated the awards by winning over half of the 26 categories.

Asked during a post awards press conference, on numbers of submissions from this region, M-Net director West Africa, Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu, said they were on a lower side.

“I don’t have specific numbers of entries from Southern Africa as well as Malawi in particular. However, I know they were on the lower side percentage wise, with a large number of the over 2 500 entries coming from Nollywood. Moving forward, we need much of southern Africa on board, seriously, we need to do better,” she explained.

Mba-Uzoukwu added that the leading digital paying television will engage all players in the film industry.

“Southern Africa needs to compete more as such, we will do a stakeholders engagement with all players so that people fully understand the awards. We did the same in Kenya last year and surely, we are able to notice the change,” she said.