An Oscars ban for a Nigerian film shows the Academy still doesn’t get it on race
Femi Kolapo
The penny about the US’s worldview dropped for me when I recently interviewed a highly educated, accomplished, politically and racially literate American. I mentioned something about the British empire and he looked at me blankly. “What is that exactly?” he asked.
This isn’t a criticism of individual Americans; many British people themselves don’t know their own imperial history. It’s a feature of what is taught in schools and purveyed in the media, which is myopic.
But news about the 2020 Oscars this week did bring that particular exchange back to mind. The Academy was considering a Nigerian movie called Lionheart in its best international feature film category. I watched Lionheart when it came out last year, partly because of the novelty of seeing a movie from Nigeria’s burgeoning Nollywood film industry on Netflix.
Directed by and starring the Nollywood titan Genevieve Nnaji, it is a captivating look at family, class, sexism, politics and the texture of life in the Niger delta. It’s both very Nigerian and very relatable for audiences who know nothing about Nigeria. It’s incredible that Nigeria has never had an Oscars submission before, but this is a good choice for its first. Yet Lionheart has just been disqualified because there is too much English in it.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Don’t the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Italian, the prolific Swedish, German, Spanish film industry experience very similar problems when it comes to international awards - in the “foreign film"
Afua Hirsch brings her background to the forefront if her concerns about the fate of nascent Nollywood at the hands of cinema’s most prestigious awards.
The New York Times has also had its say.
Hopefully, Kenneth Harrow Professor and connoisseur of African cinema will weigh in - authoritatively, on this issue.
With the Oscar awarding United States as the centre of gravity I would have thought that if ”Foreign Language” (none of the major European languages – including Yiddish and Ladino) were to be a category of criteria, that would obviate the problem that apparently disqualifies “Lionheart”
Then there’s still the lingering problem of Pidgin, “Broken”-English”, maybe, even “Nigerian” English as sub-categories of Her Majesty’s Language Imperium, and time enough for lionhearted Don Farooq Kperogi to come wading in, waving the sovereign Nigerian flag on behalf of the aggrieved world of Genevieve Nnaji
DR SIKIRU ENIOLA
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