For the second time in a row, there will be no Nigerian film to compete for nomination at next year’s Oscar Awards.

The Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) dropped the bad news on Monday.

Verdict: None of the three films submitted for consideration is eligible to fly the country’s flag to compete in the International Feature Film (formerly Best Foreign Film) category.

Chairperson of the committee, Chinese Anyaene-Abonyi said in a statement that in the wisdom of the majority of her members, none of the three films submitted, Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman by the late Biyi Bandele; Kunle Afolayan’s Anikulapo and Femi Adebayo-produced Agesinkole (King of Thieves), is suitable for the prestigious award.

The statement read in part: “Although the committee received three epic films following its call for submissions in August, it turned out that none of them will advance to the next stage owing to the voting patterns of members.

“Nigerian films had, no doubt, improved significantly as the awareness of the requirements has since grown among filmmakers, and potentially soon, we just might be bringing the award home in succession.

“Our filmmakers are (however) implored to get more acquainted with Oscar-nominated films in the IFF category to achieve the needed international recognition and put our films in its acclaimed level of creative discourse,” she stated.

The NOSC members’ voting recorded at a two-hour session on September 3rd had eight out of the 15 members voting all the three films as “non-eligible” for submission for Oscar considerations.
Five of the members, TCN reliable gathered voted in favour of Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman; while Anikulapo and Agesinkole had one vote each.
It was learnt that for the first time in its operation, voting was made an open affair with members allowed to present justification for their choices.

But it will come as s surprise in the film circuits that majority of the members ruled out the three films on reasons of eligibility.

According to the Oscar rules, the key criteria for this category says “an international film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the United States of America and its territories with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Animated and documentary feature films are permitted.”

Elesin Oba had a world premiere at the just-concluded Toronto International Film Festival last week and, like Anikulapo, is a Netflix original. Agesinkole on the other hand, aside its impressive theatrical run, is now streaming on Anazon Prime, thereby suggesting some level of technical pass-mark for all the films, in addition to their predominant non-English dialogue.

TCN reliable learnt that the voting and discussion among the NOSC members were intense. It was gathered that the five members that voted Elesin Oba thought 2023 Oscard awards could be Nigeria’s year with three things in favour of the film produced by EbonyLife Films.

They thought with the film being an adaptation of Prof. Wole Soyinka’s novel (Death and the King’s horseman) which was instrumental to his Nobel award in literature in 1996, coupled with the emotional currency that could be tapped from the death of Biyi Bandele, as the director, the film could put up a good showing at global circuits.

Furthermore, members who rooted for the film are said to be of the opinion that with its Executive Producer being Mo Abudu, the CEO of EbonyLife Studios, no other person stands a better chance of pushing the film through the required lobbies and International connection than her.

Our reporter also learnt that when it became obvious that the eight people who voted for ‘non-eligible’ would stall the chances of Nigeria having an entry, a few members allegedly offered to change their votes but the rule of the committee was against it.

With this development, it means Nigeria has only managed to present a film for Oscars’ consideration only once when Desmond Ovbiageli’s ‘The Milkmaid’ was selected in 2020, but failed to make it to the nomination stage.

Recall that Nigeria’s entry in 2019, Genevieve Nnaji’s ‘Lionheart’ was disqualified by the Academy after it was submitted by the NOSC.

The committee had in June increased its membership to 15 when it added the following people: film directors Stephanie Linus and Keneth Gyang, as well as actors John Njamah and Meg Otanwa.

In 2021, actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and director Izu Ojukwu joined the NOSC as voting members.

According to the committee, the growing list of members is to bring people of diverse creative portfolios into the dynamics of selecting the very best from Nigeria for a highly competitive international awards scheme like the Oscars.

The committee is headed by the director of 2010 movie ‘Ije’, Anyaene-Abonyi, with other members being filmmakers Mahmood Ali-Balogun; Mildred Okwo; Ego Boyo; Adetokunbo ‘DJ Tee’ Odubawo and Yibo Koko.

Others are Managing Director of FilmOne Entertainment, Moses Babatope; Journslist and film scholar, Dr. Shaibu Husseini and CEO of Legend Box Office, Bruce Ayonote.

Source: TheCultureNewspaper