For the first time since the M-Net All Africa Film Awards opened up the whole continent in 1995, the grand prize stayed at home with Gavin Hood’s A Reasonable Man taking top honours.
The 12th annual awards ceremony was held on November 16 at the Lord Charles hotel in Somerset West at the climax of the Sithengi International Film and TV Market.
Cash prizes of more than R25Â 000 were presented to winners from South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Chad and Namibia.
Many of this year’s prizes were divided between Hood’s acclaimed feature film and Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah’s Al Madina (The City). Nasrallah and Hood’s films won the Arabaphone and Anglophone categories respectively. The two shared the award for best director and Hood shared the award for best actor with Bassam Samra, who appeared in The City. Hood also received a Manie van Rensburg M-Net award for the excellence of his script. South African director Teboho Mahlatsi won the best short film category for his Portrait of a Young Man Drowning.
Two other Manie van Rensburg M-Net awards for excellence were made to the Moroccan short film La Falaise (The Cliff), directed by Faouzi Bensaïdi, and the South African short Christmas with Granny, directed by Dumisani Phakati.