For more, VOA’s Vicky Stark spoke to Wilfred Okiche, a Nigerian movie critic.
The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
VOA: Why do you think no African movies made it to the final shortlist of the Oscars this year, despite there been eight submissions?
Okiche: Films in Africa don’t have million-dollar budgets, they barely have budgets to make the film not to talk of promoting you know and distributing the film and they don’t get international distributors that are plugged into the Oscars scene. So, there’s a lot of obstacles preventing the African filmmaker from competing.
VOA: Throughout the 95-year history of the Oscars, only three African movies have won under the Best Foreign Language Film, now known as the Best International Film category. What are your thoughts on that?
Okiche: So, it’s spotty, it’s not a great record.
The international film has usually favored European filmmakers you know, just for the fact that they’ve had that proximity with Hollywood forever, and they’ve had this film culture forever.
But also, many African countries have been going to the Oscars recently, so we’ve not really had that long history. You know South Africa maybe, Algeria maybe, maybe Egypt, but a lot of Africa countries have only been going and submitting in the last 10 years.
VOA: Which film do you think was the best production this year?
Okiche: 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' has all the momentum right now.
They’ll be hard to beat. They have the momentum, they have the narrative, they seem to have the industry support.
VOA: The movie 'Living' was directed by South African Oliver Hermanus and received two nominations under the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor. Do you expect any Oscars for this movie?
Okiche: I don’t think it’s going to win anything, but that’s not saying that it’s not a good movie or that it’s not a great film.
We all know it’s a remake of a great Japanese film, 'Ikiru.'
They’ll be hard to beat. They have the momentum, they have the narrative, they seem to have the industry support.
VOA: Grammy Award winning Nigerian musician Tems is up for the golden statue for writing the song 'Lift Me Up' which was sung and performed by multi-award-winning artist and billionaire Rihanna and was the theme song for the hit movie 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.' What is your reaction to that?
Okiche: So, we’re really excited about her. Is she going to win, I doubt it.
That category is most likely going to go to the Indian film 'RRR.' They have this song 'Naatu Naatu' that is driving the whole world crazy.
