Kunle Afolayan Gives More Details About Oscar Rejection, Slams Nollywood Colleagues

Kunle Afolayan's new movie Anikulapo premiered on Netflix and in cinemas last week and it has been the topic of conversation ever since. Sadly, despite Kunle's best efforts, the movie wasn't picked as a contender to be considered for the prestigious international Academy Awards.

Last month, the Nigerian Official Selection Committee for the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences announced that it will not be submitting any movie for the 2023 Oscars. The committee made the decision in a session that reportedly lasted two hours on September 3, 2023 where a voting chart of 8:5:1:1 from its 15 members decided that no film was eligible. They said in a statement: "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".

Now, Kunle Afolayan during an interview with Channels Television is shedding more light on how he feels about it, the politics he believes was in play, and what the Oscars needs to change. Here is what the acclaimed filmmaker said.

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When asked to speak about the Oscar nomination controversy, Kunle Afolayan said:

For a film to qualify for Oscars, outside of the U.S., you have committees in those countries who will preselect and present the films to Oscars. I submitted and I know quite a number of people submitted, and last year when they said no film was eligible, I reached out and said "look, what are those parameters? Send to us," so they sent it to say read this and then we ensured that we meet all the criterias. As a matter of fact, Anikulapo is supposed to be exclusive to just Netflix, we are not supposed to do cinema. But because Netflix also would like for us to submit, they gave a bit of window. Because one of the conditions [for Oscars] is that you have to do seven days at least in the cinemas before the Netflix release or the same day as Netflix release. And Netflix agreed that, go ahead, so you can qualify. So we met all the conditions. And then, I think it's a 15-man team or something and I think they went to vote, and if you have films that qualify, why would 8 members of the committee say no film is eligible. So up till now, they haven't come out to explain the meaning of "no film is eligible". They wrote to us to say "you didn't have enough votes so sorry, your film can't" but no film is eligible, what does it even mean? And they haven't come out to explain that to anyone and it's just a shame because this is the first time you're going to have this quality. You have Elesin Oba, you have King of Thieves, and then you have Anikulapo. And these are like three solid epic films that could have represented the country. So I don't know.

Maybe Oscars need to change, and not put our fate in the hands of a few colleagues. Because most of them are our colleagues, and I think that's also a bit, you know [in Yoruba: the committee members might be trying to apply for their own film next year], you know, some of those things. Cuz if you have ten or more committee members are filmmakers like us, directors, and some of these directors also happen to work for some of the competing films, it's a lot of mess.

The Nigerian Official Selection Committee for the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences is made up of Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi, Mildred Okwo, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Ego Boyo, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Stephanie Linus, Shaibu Husseini, Bruce Ayonote, Odubawo Adetokunbo, Izu Ojukwu, Moses Babatope, Yibo Koko, Meg Otanwa, Kenneth Gyang, and John Njamah.

What do you think? Kunle believes there is politics at play, do you agree? Or do you think after seeing King Of Boys, Elesin Oba, and Anikulapo, that you too believe they are not worthy picks for the Oscars? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment either below or on my Jide Okonjo Facebook post.

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