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The nominees for the 2015 edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (Amaa 2015) were revealed at an invitation-only nomination dinner this weekend in Beverly Hills. Amaa announced South Africa as the host country for the 2015 event, which will be held outside Nigeria for the first time since the awards were founded in 2004. Some of the brightest stars in the African entertainment world mingled with such Hollywood celebrities as Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr., Ja’Net DuBois, Lynn Whitfield and Sheryl Lee Ralph. Nigerian stars Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (“Ije”) and Patience Ozokwor (“Mama G”) attended, as did South Africa’s Terry Pheto (“Tsotsi”) and Ghanaian Lydia Forson (“Phone...

Nigerian superstar, and one of Nollywood's most popular actresses, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, will make her USA TV debut tonight on the VH1 freshman series, Hit The Floor. The actress made the announcement via her Twitter page earlier today: Yes it's Tonight! @HitTheFloor my Us Tv Debut 24/06/13 9pm! #despisenotthedaysoflittlebeginnings love to @iKimberlyElise watch @Akon @VH1— Omotola. j .Ekeinde (@Realomosexy) June 24, 2013 A star on her own reality TV series in Nigeria titled The Real Me, the busy Ekeinde recently co-starred alongside Hit The Floor star Kimberly Elise in Ghanaian-American director Leila Djansi's Ties That Bind. She also starred...

I was reading This piece on Nollywood superstar actress Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (her new reality TV show, The Real Me, premieres tomorrow in Nigeria), and this closing paragraph got my attention, and I thought was worth sharing: Omotola being fully aware of the existing commercial disparity between Nollywood and Hollywood, revealed that Nigerian actors are quite comfortable with the success of Nollywood. “The typical Nollywood actress does not want to go anywhere, we believe in ourselves and we believe in our industry. We have done collaborations with other countries and different artistes from other countries, and that is where we wanted to take it. In truth, I...

And you thought this was strictly an American TV thing... Nigerian superstar, and one of Nollywood's highest paid actresses, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde has jumped on the celebrity Reality TV show badwagon with her own upcoming series, titled The Real Me. On what to expect from the series, the actress says that it will reflect her real life, and will address misconceptions about her. “It’s just about me. A lot of young people from Africa want to know how a celebrity and a female for that matter, and a married woman with children’s life is from day to day. A lot of people think maybe I don’t stay at home at all. All the busy questions you ask me in...

Worth-listening to conversation with British/Nigerian director Christian Ashaiku, whose pscho-drama/thriller Amina, is scheduled to open next week Wednesday, October 17th, at Empire Cinema in Leicester Square, London. The film fits nicely under that category of diaspora cinema that sees cross-continental collaborations between Africans and people of African descent outside of Africa. The Nigerian/British co-production stars Nollywood megastars Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Van Vicker, as well as black British actors like Wil Johnson. Told in flashback, Amina centers on the life of a gifted young woman (played by Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde) who, devastated by a series of...

Details in the press release below... for our Brit reafers: On Wednesday 17th October 2012, the world famous Empire Cinema in Leicester Square will witness a unique collaboration of a Nigerian/British production with the world premiere of the much anticipated movie 'Amina', a psychological human drama featuring Nollywood megastars Omotola Jalade-ekeinde and Van Vicker alongside top British movie stars Wil Johnson, Vincent REGANand Alison Carroll aka Lara Croft. "Nollywood on the Next Level" Nigerian cinema – popularly known as ‘Nollywood’ is Africa’s largest movie...

Dark Horse (15)

(Todd Solondz, 2011, Us) Selma Blair, Jordan Gelber, Christopher Walken, Mia Farrow, Justin Bartha, Zachary Booth. 86 mins

Trust Todd Solondz to give us the flipside of movie man-childhood. There's nothing funny or adorable about 35-year-old Abe (Gelber), who lives with his parents, collects action figures and has no idea of his own uselessness. He meets his match (sort of) in the virtually comatose Blair, and what ensues is a romcom that's neither romantic nor comical, but beneath the misanthropy lurks some kind of compassion.

Killer Joe (18)

(William Friedkin, 2011, Us) Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple. 102 mins

Curdling Texan noir and melodrama in a bizarre, curiously fascinating thriller.

The King Of Devil's Island (12A)

(Marius Holst, 2010, Nor/Fra/Swe/Pol) Stellan Skarsgård, Benjamin Helstad. 116 mins

Prison thriller set on a 1950s Norwegian borstal island.

Storage 24 (15)

(Johannes Roberts, 2012, UK) Noel Clarke, Colin O'Donoghue. 87 mins

Minimal sci-fi thriller set in a London storage unit.

Ms Nollywood Forever has given me permission to use her reviews of Nollywood films here.

So, for those of you interested in diving into the mosh pit that is Nollywood cinema but are either intimidated or just don’t have the desire to sift through thousands of titles, in search of gems, I hope you’ll find her reviews helpful.

She reviews just about everything – the good and the bad, or as she states – “(Nigerian and Ghanaian) movies that I have watched. The old, the new… The good, the bad… The excellent and the disastrous.”

And she has an entire library full of them (both films and reviews of films). But I’ll only post reviews of those films she recommends, starting off with today’s selection titled, Deepest Of Dreams, written and directed by Tchidi Chikere, which she gives an 81% rating, calling it “thought provoking” and “well worth watching.