Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), has announced that its annual pre-event party, in which nominations into the various categories of the scheme are announced, will this year, be taken to Lilongwe, Malawi.

Although an Africa’s movie event, AMAA has in the last eight years been held in Nigeria, its country of origin, but nomination and other sensitization programmes have been rotated among participating countries.

Reports from AMAA secretariat say that President Joyce Banda has accepted to host filmmakers and celebrities from the continent who will converge on Malawi for the event, slated for March 16, 2013.

“The AMAA nomination weekend will run from March 14th-17th during which the business community, the political class in Malawi, celebrities from across Africa and their counterparts in the Southern African country will be hosted to pre-nomination concert, the nominations event proper and post-nomination party,” says Tony Anih, AMAA’s director of administration.

According to Anih, the government and people of Malawi are very excited with the prospect of having movie icons and other players in the motion picture industry come to the country for the nominations event.

The nomination party, which held in The Gambia last year, will reveal movies, filmmakers and stars who have made it to the grand finale across the 25 categories that the scheme evaluates yearly.

AMAA awards which is in its ninth year, holds in April.

”The award ceremony usually takes place in Nigeria, but nomination events are moved from country to country. It is our way to promoting the African virtues of the award and also celebrating our cultural diversity. We have had the nominations previously in Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. This year, we decided to come to Malawi because of the level of popularity and acceptability of African films, most especially Nollywood and Gollywood movies in that country,” said Anih.