{"id":20176,"date":"2016-03-07T10:11:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T08:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=20176"},"modified":"2016-03-07T10:11:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T08:11:44","slug":"joyce-chavula-wins-top-movie-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2016\/03\/07\/joyce-chavula-wins-top-movie-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce Chavula wins top movie award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actress Joyce Mhango Chavula opened a new chapter for Malawi in the creative industry when she became the first Malawian to win an award in the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCAs) with her movie titled Lilongwe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Malawi has never won an AMVCA since the red carpet event was established in 2013.<\/p>\n

The actress also became the first to win the Best Movie \u2013Southern Africa Award which was only introduced this year alongside Best Movie for West Africa which went to Chinny Onwugbenu, Genevieve Nnaji and Chichi Nwoko for Road to Yesterday and Best Movie for East Africa won by Elizabeth Michael for Mapenzi.<\/p>\n

Joyce triumphed in the category beating two South African movies \u2013 Ayanda <\/em>by Sarah Bletcher and Tell Me Sweet Something <\/em>by Akin Omotosho, both of which had more nominations during the grand finale held at Eko Hotel in Lagos on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

With Joyce only having one nomination for the 89-minute low budget movie which cost her K1.5 million and being drawn against the two South African movies, some quarters never gave her the chance to excel.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalawi the Warm Heart of Africa this is for you,\u201d said Joyce who was accompanied on stage by lead actress in the movie Brenda Mselu.<\/p>\n

Several people congratulated Joyce for her triumph through the social media with others calling on the Ministry of Sports and Culture to organise a home coming reception in recognition of her achievement.<\/p>\n

Joyce, who together with Mselu comes back home today, said later after the event which climaxed with an after-party at the same venue that the award has driven her to do more movies so that she can grab more nominations next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank Malawians for the support they gave me, they voted and this unity is what we need. To my fellow actors and film makers, it\u2019s time to work hard, we have the chances all we need is just to stay focused,\u201d said Joyce.<\/p>\n

The National Theatre Association of Malawi (Ntam) and Fama vice president said that there are several stories out there and that all what was needed was to explore the different platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something happening in the industry for sure and all I can say is that the government and the corporate world needs to come out and support us,\u201d said the actress.<\/p>\n

The movie was premiered during last year\u2019s film festival spearheaded by Film Association of Malawi (Fama) with other stakeholders in Lilongwe in October.<\/p>\n

The journey for the success of the movie on the international platform started last year when it was also selected for screening in the competition category at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival in October last year.<\/p>\n

The title of the movie Lilongwe <\/em>is also the name of the country\u2019s capital city where the film was shot and it tells the story of a 13-year old girl who later grows into a beautiful young woman but still haunted by her past.<\/p>\n

According to Joyce, the film talks about a very strong woman who had three children from three different men.<\/p>\n

\u201cSociety says she is a prostitute but she believes she is doing her best to survive. Throughout the story, Lilongwe is saying, don\u2019t judge me, you don\u2019t know my story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The film features Mselu as the lead actress and Joab Chakhaza as the lead actor and Mhango Chavula also features in the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film was shot in rural and urban Lilongwe. The title was an inspiration from Onyeka Nwelue, a Nigerian writer who once visited Lilongwe and fell in love with the city and he wanted to do a film but later could not,\u201d said Joyce.<\/p>\n

The actress also received a nomination in the Africa Movie Academy Awards (Amaa) for Best Feature Film by Director for her movie No More Tears in 2014 but she failed to make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to give up after failing during Amaa and I know this award will give birth to many film makers in Malawi,\u201d said Joyce.<\/p>\n

The actress, who has also starred in other movies including Shemu Joyah\u2019s The Last Fishing Boat<\/em>, said she submitted the movie just to give it a try.<\/p>\n

Mselu could also not hide her excitement with the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing, this is exciting for Malawi. To fellow actors and actresses, let\u2019s continue working hard, there is talent in Malawi, we just need to take it out for people to see it,\u201d said Mselu.<\/p>\n

Omotosho, who among others won the Best Director Award said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to be nominated and somebody had to win and I am happy for Malawi. I have no problem with the way things went. I have not watched the movie but well done to Joyce. At least we can see films from all over the continent and she gave a very good speech,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The event was attended by several renowned Nollywood stars including Mr Ibu, Ramsey Noah, Ini Edo, Richard Mofe Damijo and Rita Dominic was spiced up by performances from comedians Salvado and Thomas Gumede from Uganda and South Africa respectively with music performances from Nigeria\u2019s Flavour and Yemi Alade, Tanzania\u2019s Ali Kiba and South Africa\u2019s Zonke.<\/p>\n

There were over 20 categories on the night.<\/p>\n

However, the top four awards were Best Actress in Drama\/Movie which went to Adesua Etomi for Falling, Daniel K Daniel picked Best Actor Award for Soldiers Story, Best Director went to Omotosho for Tell Me Sweet Something with Dry by Stephanie Linus claiming the Best Overall winner (Africa).<\/p>\n

She got a prize of G5 Nissan which also went to Kemi Lala Akindoju for being name the 2016 Trailblazer.<\/p>\n

The AMVCAs are spearheaded by Africa Magic in association with MultiChoice and the headline sponsor was Amstel Malta.<\/p>\n

The hosts for this year\u2019s event broadcast live on all Africa Magic channels on DStv and GOtv, were IK, who was hosting the event for the fourth time and South Africa\u2019s Minenhle \u2018Minnie\u2019 Dlamini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actress Joyce Mhango Chavula opened a new chapter for Malawi in the creative industry when she became the first Malawian to win an award in the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCAs) with her movie titled Lilongwe. Malawi has never won an AMVCA since the red carpet event was established in 2013. The actress also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20182,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20176\/revisions\/20182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}