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Filmmaker Femi
Odugbemi’s ‘Bariga Boy’ on Wednesday, May 19, won the AfroPop Prize for
Best Film at the 5th Real Life Documentary Festival in Accra, Ghana.
The award is the third honour the film on Segun Adefila and the Crown
Troupe of Africa has won recently. It won the Best Documentary Prize at
the 2010 AMAA Awards in April and won in the same category at the Abuja
Film Festival.

Eminent academics,
literary, film and art personalities attended the award ceremony held
at Goethe Institut, Accra. They include Manthia Diawara, professor and
head, Literature and African Studies, New York University, who launched
a book on African cinema at the occasion; Ed Gurrero, professor of Film
Studies at New York University; filmmakers Christine Choy, Yeman
Demissie from Ethiopia and Stephanie Black.

Chair of the
ceremony, the poet Kofi Anyidoho, noted that the festival “is dedicated
to documentary films based on the histories, peoples, heroes, cities
and locations of African and diasporic communities. It brings together
filmmakers, scholars, students and film enthusiasts to one of the
greatest historic Pan-African cities in the world – Accra.”

Anyidoho added that
the festival is on its way to becoming Africa’s major forum for the
production, cataloguing and exhibition of documentary film records of
African and African-diasporic subjects in global history because of the
dedication of its founders, Lydie Diakhate and Awam Amkpa.

The winner of the
AfroPop Prize sponsored by the National Black Programming Consortium
(NBPC), United States, paid tribute to Adefila and the Crown Troupe in
his acceptance speech. He noted that Adefila is a model worth emulating
by other youth because of his passion for advocating social change with
his works despite operating in a hostile environment. Odugbemi
reiterated that, “for Africa to catch up with the world
infrastructurally, politically and economically, artists of all shades
must stand up to be counted. Our talent must speak out to challenge
power and inspire change.”

Co-founder and
co-director of the festival, Diakhate lauded the Nigerian filmmaker’s
win. “I am very happy that Femi Odugbemi got the AfroPop Prize. He did
a beautiful work and I really enjoyed the way he portrayed a young
gifted Nigerian artist and his neighbourhood.”

She added that,
“The awards are for me very important because it is a great opportunity
for the festival to give recognition to contemporary African visual
productions.”

Other awards
presented at the festival which started on Sunday, May 16 and ended on
Thursday, May 20 were the Walter Mosley Prize worth $5,000 won by
Yemani Demissie and Joe Ampha Prize which carries a cash prize of
$1,000. Young Ghanaian student filmmaker, Elizabeth Coleman, won the
prize for her short film ‘Camp Healing’.

Several documentary
films including John Akomfrah’s ‘The Genome Chronicles’; Senegalese
Ousmane Mbaye’s ‘Mere Bi’ and Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer’s
collaboration, ‘Kinshasha Symphony’ were screened at the festival.
‘Twilight Revelations’ by Ethiopia’s Yemane Demissie and ‘Africa Unite’
by Stephanie Black were also shown.

With this win, Odugbemi’s ‘Bariga Boy’ will likely be shown on
‘AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange’, a US based public TV show
featuring independent documentaries and short films about life art and
culture from the contemporary African Diaspora. The show is hosted by
actor Idris Elba and the winner of the AfroPop award is offered a
three-year contract worth up to $8000.