Following the death of talented filmmaker and animator Jibril Mailafia in the Jos killings, organisers of the Africa Academy Movie Awards have refashioned their Best Animation category after Malafia. It is now to be known as the Jibril Mailafia Award for Best Animation.
Speaking on this posthumous recognition, founder and CEO of AMAA Peace Anyiam-Osigwe said the Board of the Academy took the decision to honour the late animator because of his place as one of Africa’s shining lights in the area of creative animations. “Jibril was easily one of the top 10 animators in Africa – a crazy editor, a fantastic crew member, a no-stress team player, the vicious death is a wake-up call for us to speak out. We create things, it is time to we use our voices in film, music, dance to shout loud and clear that this unnecessary killings should stop.”
“It was with rude shock that AMAA received the news of the death of Mailafia who was nominated in the animation category in the year’s award,” AMAA’s Director of Administration Tony Anih said. “His entry is titled Group Foto. Yes, he was that good and consistent with his art. He will forever be remembered by AMAA as one of the young brilliant creative talents in animation to ever come out of Africa. We will continue to hold a candle in your name that will never burn out.”
Born in Nasarawa, Mailafia was an award-winning filmmaker, director, producer and animator. He earned a Diploma from the University of Jos and a Bachelor of Film Arts Degree from the National Film Institute, Jos. He has worked as an animator with international organisations and won over 13 awards and numerous nominations from the short films he has produced and directed. His 2013 animation film Mission Impossible was nominated in the 2013 AMAA in the category of Best Animation. And in 2014, he won Best Experimental Film for The Throne and it was nominated the following for the AMVCA. Last year, his film Got Flowers received an AMAA.
The 2018 AMAA is still scheduled to hold in Kigali, Rwanda on October 20.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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