The Oscars disqualified 'Lionheart' because Nigerians speak English in it — just like in Nigeria

On Monday, Nov. 4, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their devastating decision to disqualify Nigeria's entry in the best international film category, Genevieve Nnaji's feminist and emotionally searing "Lionheart," from the 2020 Oscars race. Apparently, the film had not been vetted by the academy’s International Feature Film Award Executive Committee prior to the Oct. 7 announcement of qualifying films, when it was first named.

The academy, which has recently changed the name of the category from "best foreign language film" to "best international film," disqualified "Lionheart" under the rule that best international film entries must boast "a predominantly non-English dialogue track." It should be noted that in addition to English, the Nigerian language Igbo is also spoken throughout "Lionheart," Netflix's first original film from Nigeria.

A female trailblazer for African cinema, Nnaji began her career in Nigeria's burgeoning film industry, known colloquially as Nollywood, as a child star on soap operas and in commercials, moving into films as first an actor, then a producer and now a director. "Lionheart," her directorial debut, follows Adaeze (Nnaji), a whip-smart businesswoman who is desperately trying to save her father's transport company in the wake of his illness and her fraught relationship with her uncle.

But perhaps more important than the plot or its talented director-star, is an understanding of the history of Nigerian filmmaking and Britain's century-long rule over the country.

Though Nollywood is now one of the top film industries in the world, it only got its start in the 1960s, when Nigerian film pioneers like Ola Balogun realized in the post-colonial era that an entire country of people, with a rich culture and traditions, were looking outward — toward Hollywood — for their entertainment. Nigeria has always been pulsing with its own stories to tell. Along with Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Jab Adu, Moses Olayia and Eddie Ugboma became the first generation of Nigerian filmmakers, setting the foundation for an industry that would explode in the 1990s.

Reeling from the imprint of colonization and teetering under the weight of decades of government instability, a ban on imports and a massive economic crisis, Nigerian filmmakers, artists and entrepreneurs had to find new ways to make movies and distribute them without the high overhead costs of traditional film. Using VHS systems, which were cheaper and more widely available, producer Kenneth Nnebue launched Nigeria's home-video industry in 1992 with his first straight-to-video movie, "Living in Bondage."

From there, cinema in Nigeria became a nearly $700 million a year phenomena.

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Image: Netflix.

Black Romance In Film Makes A Glorious Return On The Set Of 'The Photograph'

Love and romance are integral parts of the human experience. However, romantic dramas in cinema starring Black people have been few and far between. Some of the most beloved have been Love Jones, The Best Man and Love & Basketball. Also, recent projects like Beyond the Lights, Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk have shown Black love.  However, there have been limited films that solely focus on love and relationships between young Black people in the 21st century. In her New York City-based romantic drama, The Photograph, writer and director Stella Meghie is putting the spotlight on Black love stories.

The Photograph follows Mae Morton (Issa Rae), a museum curator grappling with the death of her estranged mother, a famed photographer. After uncovering a forgotten photograph in her late mother's safety deposit box, Mae embarks on a quest to unpack who her mother truly was. Her journey connects with journalist Michael Block (Lakeith Stanfield), who is working on his own story about Mae's mom.

"I was 16 watching Love Jones on repeat," Meghie explained when Shadow And Act visited The Photograph set in New York City. "It was an adult, very sexy, intellectual, sophisticated kind of love. That film shaped me a lot. Love & Basketball was a big thing for me. Gina Prince-Bythewood is a definite inspiration. Hav Plenty as well."

The Photograph is a story that the Canadian-born director has been wanting to create for years. "I talked to Will [Packer] about a romantic drama like five years ago," she revealed. "I ended up doing my first film Jean of the Joneses and then Everything, Everything. However, I wanted to come back to this script. I finally ended up writing it a few years later after we spoke about it."

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: Universal Pictures.

Dakota Fanning's role in 'Sweetness in My Belly' flaunts Hollywood's addiction to the white gaze

With buzz words like "inclusion" and "diversity" swirling about, the film industry has in recent years begun scrambling to present stories that have previously been ignored or suppressed. However, in doing so, they continue to strip agency from Black and brown voices, pushing them to the side of their own narratives to center white faces.

A rather egregious example of this is the upcoming film, ”Sweetness In the Belly,” starring Dakota Fanning. Based on Canadian author Camilla Gibb's award-winning novel, the story follows Lilly (played by Fanning), a white child abandoned by her hippie parents in a Moroccan village. Raised by a Sufi master in the Islamic faith, 16-year-old Lilly eventually makes an overland pilgrimage to an Ethiopian city — which, if your geography is lacking, is roughly the distance from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami — and settles there until the revolution breaks out and she's forced to flee to London.

Shoving aside the experiences of Ethiopian people who actually lived through the atrocities of the Ethiopian Civil War is offensive enough — but Lilly never even existed. Gibb, who was born in England, wrote a novel about the "imagined narrative of one woman's search for love and belonging, cast against a nuanced portrait of political upheaval." As astounding as it is to consider, Gibb literally chose a historical incident that involved Black people and created a white woman to place in the center of it all. And now her story will reach an even wider audience through cinema.

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For Toni Morrison, Storytelling Was The Measure Of Life

obel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison has passed away. She was 88. Though Morrison is no longer with us, her story and all that she accomplished in her profound life will live on forever. Toni Morrison’s documentary, legacy and quotes present a woman determined to tell her own story. Though many of us were first introduced to the Ohio native in the classroom– Morrison’s story began long before her birth in 1931. She was born into a family who valued literacy above all else.

In the recent film, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am--we learn about a woman who loved literature, language, and Black people so much that she wanted to share it with the world. However, Morrison’s entry into the world of publishing was not a straight path. She did not pen her first novel, The Bluest Eye, until she was nearly 40 years old.

In The Pieces I Am, we learn about the Nobel Prize winner’s background. Though she was born into an impoverished family–her people were proud and brilliant. Morrison learned to read at age three. Because of the tight-leash that her parents had on her, and her desire to explore–she knew that to spread her wings, she needed to leave Ohio behind.

Morrison’s journey to find herself would lead her to Washington, D.C.’s Howard University. As Morrison said in 1987’s Beloved, “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Though she was always an avid reader–Morrison was increasingly aware that Black female voices were virtually non-existent in the literature space.

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.