Tanzania Malaria Film Chumo Nominated for Two Africa Movie Academy Awards

Tanzania Malaria Film Nominated for Two Africa Movie Academy Awards

March 23, 2012
By Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

With nominations in two categories at the upcoming Africa Movie Academy Awards – Best Short Film and Best Film in an African Language – the critical acclaim for Chumo keeps rolling in.

Produced by Media for Development International for the JHU∙CCP-led Communication and Malaria Initiative in Tanzania (COMMIT) with funding from PMI, Chumo presents a captivating story of love, ambition, determination and malaria.

Chumo premiered in the United States at the Pan-African Film Festival in February 2011 where it was an official selection in the Short Narrative category. It was awarded Best Short Narrative and Best of Projections (best film) at the Northwest Projections festival in April 2011, and was also named an official selection for the June 2011 Zanzibar International Film Festival where it also won awards for Best Actress and Best Director.

Nevertheless, the Africa Movie Academy Award nominations represent an exciting development for Chumo as attention at this prestigious award ceremony will certainly bring even more publicity to the film from audiences across Africa.

In Tanzania, Chumo has already been seen by a sizable number of viewers. A recent survey in cities across Tanzania by Synovate Omnibus found that over 3 million Tanzanians had seen the film, a number which will continue to grow when CCP airs the film on television and sends it out on Mobile Video Units in conjunction with the launch of an upcoming safe motherhood campaign.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive; viewers said that the film was of much higher quality than typical locally-produced movies, that it realistically depicted Tanzanians and Tanzanian life and that they enjoyed the storyline. Perhaps most importantly for the CCP staff behind the development of the film, almost all viewers recalled the messages from the film about preventing malaria in pregnancy, demonstrating once again that entertainment like movies can be used for education purposes.

The Africa Movie Academy Awards will be presented at a gala celebration on April 22, 2012.

Visit the official Chumo website to learn more about the making the movie, cast and crew.