CNN’s African Voices, a weekly show that highlights Africa’s most engaging personalities, recently featured Nigerian filmmaker and founder of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMMA), Peace Anyiam-Osigwe.

After working on several movies and documentaries in Nigeria’s film industry, popularly known as Nollywood, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe founded the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2005. The awards have since grown into one of the most prestigious film award shows on the continent, changing the way Nigerians are seen around the world. Her passion is film; and by turning that passion into a mission, she has given the African continent a voice on the big screen.

Speaking on issues of film-making in Nigeria and the idea behind AMAA, Osigwe said, “When I first came back to Nigeria, I realized that the biggest issue with us as filmmakers was the lack of acknowledgement and actually celebrating ourselves for the work that we do. And Nollywood was not being given the recognition that it deserved at the time,” she said.

She had her own talk show when she came home from the UK and started making films. They said the following about her experience, “It was like little groups of us just doing what we wanted to do. We finally set up a group called the Filmmakers Incorporated of Nigeria and got Corporate Nigeria looking at what this business entailed as a business. We then started having little things that made people come to recognize the stardom and the heros we created through Nollywood films.”

Nollywood is one of the most popular industries in Nigeria. It’s a massive money-maker that has thrown Africa’s most populous country into the spotlight.

A big part of Nollywood’s prestige comes from the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). Nollywood films are seen all over the African continent and in many of parts of the world, but breaking into Hollywood is the next big step. 2013 was the ninth year of the annual awards show and saw a return to its usual host city Bayelsa in southern Nigeria after being held in Lagos last year.