Winners emerge at MTN Afrinolly film competition

Namibia’s filmmaker, Florian Schott’s Everything Happens for a Reason, has won $25,000 for the short film category while Nigeria’s Victor Okoye’s Creative Minds, also won $25,000 for the Documentary category at the MTN Afrinolly film competition. The ceremony took place at MUSON Centre, Lagos. more

In the short film category, Daniel Etim Effiong’s Your Cup of Tea was first runner-up with $10,000 while Gbenga Salu’s 10:10 was second runner-up with $5,000.

In the documentary category, Ronke Ogunmakin’s Awele’s Diary, was first runner-up with $10,000 and Ng'endo Mukii’s Yellow Fever was second runner-up with $5,000.  Other finalists in both categories received $500 respectively.

General Manager, Consumer Marketing, MTN Nigeria, Kola Oyeyemi, said: “ MTN will always love to develop every area where it operates. Our core objective for sponsoring Afrinolly is to empower African youths to tell their own stories from their own perspective and eliminate financial barriers to movie production. We look forward to create a new generation of content providers in the African movie industry”. He said

According to Schott, “ It is amazing. I am more than excited for coming tops in the MTN Afrinolly short film category. My success was based on the passion I had put in. The extra efforts, I made in achieving this and a lot of my fans that voted for my film. I am extremely grateful to MTN for the $25,000 prize money as it will help in promoting the Namibian film industry because, I will re-invest the money into film production in my country.”

Victor Okoye also said: “It is a great privilege to win this competition and I say a big thank you to God Almighty and MTN Nigeria for their continuous support in providing reliable platform for future stars to be discovered.” He said.

“ The MTN Afrinolly short film competition is a unique, innovative and youth-focused competition, with singular concentration on the next generation of African filmmakers. The competition is designed to expand the conversations on issues about the continent by Africans and to motivate and reward young and emerging film makers who exhibit exceptional narrative skills, using short movies and documentary as a medium.”