Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - An Oscars ban for a Nigerian film shows the Academy still doesn’t get it on race

That is a great question. They did not like Lionheart. Would they like Kelani's Arugba?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2019 5:53:48 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - An Oscars ban for a Nigerian film shows the Academy still doesn't get it on race

 

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The keyphrase is international feature film category.  If the film is submitted for the English tradition then it will compete in that category with expectations of English lifestyle depicted there;  if on the other hand it is to be considered international and it is seen as striving to fit into the Anglophone western culture it fails on that score too because it would not be able to mimic that style satisfactorily placed side by side with films produced by people born and raised in that culture.

Question is why have not films produced and directed by Adebayo Faleti, Ade Love, Kelani and Moses Ola Iya been submitted thus far?

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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From: Femi Kolapo <kolapof@uoguelph.ca>

Date: 07/11/2019 09:14 (GMT+00:00)

To: "usaafricadialogue (usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com)" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - An Oscars ban for a Nigerian film shows the Academy still doesn't get it on race

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/06/oscard-ban-nollywood-film-lionheart-oscarssowhite-nigerian-film

An Oscars ban for a Nigerian film shows the Academy still doesn't get it on race | Afua Hirsch | Opinion | The Guardian Excluding Lionheart for using English shows Africans are still expected to satisfy American ideas of authenticity, says Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch www.theguardian.com

Excluding Lionheart for using English shows Africans are still expected to satisfy American ideas of authenticity

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.

#OscarsSoWhite: a 10-point plan for change by the hashtag's creator

 

Read more

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.

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