Nov.1 (PREMIUM TIMES) – Budding and innovative film makers in the Nigerian movie industry stand a chance to win $100,000 in a short film competition.

The competition was launched on Friday by MTN Afrinolly, the Nigerian mobile phone app that enables users watch movie trailers.

Tagged ‘Afrinolly Shortfilm Competition’, the initiative is a video-based competition targeted at budding film-makers and documentary/animation content creators.

Candidates are expected to submit a sub-15 minutes film that can be easily assessed on mobile devices. The competition will run for three months and submissions will be made online on the website – www.afrinollyshortfilmcompetition.com.

Speaking at the event, the CEO of FansConnectOnline Limited, the developers of Afrinolly, Chike Maduegbuna said, “With this competition, we aim at showcasing African talent online, and providing a platform to foster the creation of new online content produced by Africans.”

The competition target over 1,000 film makers across Africa. Winners will be rewarded with prizes worth $100,000 in cash  while top participants will be offered the opportunity to sign online distribution and content deals with Afrinolly.

The panel of judges includes award winning Nollywood movie producers – Tunde Kelani, Emem Isong, Femi Odugbemi amongst professional from all over Africa.

The overall winner will smile home with $25,000, the first runner up will get $10,000 and the second runner up will receive $5,000 in two categories – Short movie and Documentary.

“This competition is the first of its kind in Africa,” said Mr. Maduegbuna.

“Given the high penetration of mobile devices, relative to desktop computers in Africa, the concept of the Afrinolly Shortfilm Competition was borne out of the need to create an ecosystem of short (sub-15minutes) film/movie content that can be easily consumed on mobile devices.”

He explained that the competition is totally online and the plan is to shortlist 30 submissions for the two categories. He said each judge will watch and select the best ten per category. Thereafter, the internet public will vote online to determine the winners per category.

Afrinolly Short Film Competition is being partnered by MTN, Blackberry, iRep, Goethe Institute and Google as the Social Media Partner.