Nominations Sparks Controversy

As the countdown to this year’s annual National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) draws nearer, various artists are raising concerns over the absence of nominees in film and television, where there are no nominees for the outstanding screen production for television drama and television soap. This has led artists in some quarters to describe the nomination process as biased with Legacies’ soap director; Kaleb Maramba expressing disappointment at this development and questioned NAMA’S credibility.

”We presented the soap to them but they did not consider it and to my surprise, three of our members were nominated for the outstanding actor and actress award,” Maramba queried. However, some of the artists have taken the blame on to themselves for not submitting their productions for nomination by NAMA.

In an interview, the Small House Saga executive producer, Nomphle Mtuphla took the blame for not submitting their production for consideration by the NAMA adjudicators. “I am part of the NAMA production as the event manager and by virtue of that I could not get the time to present the soap as I was very busy,” Mtuphla said. She also said NAMA only considered productions that have been on air of which their production was not screened.
www.nama.co.zw