A few hours ago, the Oscars aired and ended, closing a long awards season. There are those will spend the hours and probably days celebrating their success at the world’s biggest film awards night. It is unlikely any of those people will be African, as the continent’s sole nominee ended up emptyhanded.
But signs that the 2025 Oscars were not going to be like the 2006 Oscars ceremony, where South Africa won the Best Foreign Language category, were always there. You just had to be paying attention.
Below, some reasons as to why the 2025 Oscars ceremony and the campaign season leading to it were never going to go Africa’s way.
1. Nigeria’s unserious campaign
Last year, Nigeria got to send an entry for only the 3rd time in its history. The film, Mai Martaba, received a pledge for campaign sponsorship from the government of Nigeria. However, merely days to the end of the initial voting process, the film’s director revealed that the government still hadn’t approved funds for the campaign.
Which is a shame because nobody wins the Oscars’ international category with such a lackadaisical approach to campaigning and getting voters to see the film.
2. Long hours, no guarantees, probably no pay
Oscars campaign season is a long process that probably sees the filmmaker making enough money. It’s not a process that the struggling African filmmaker can’t go through months without assurances of success when he/she needs to continue working to earn a living day by day.
3. Too few great African films are being made
Not a lot of great films are being chosen. You should see the film chosen by Cameroon to represent the country.
I am yet to see the film but the trailer makes it quite clear that it had absolutely no hope of making it past even a rudimentary stage of the world’s biggest film awards. Viewers and critics are mostly concerned with storytelling. But with production values at the level on display in that trailer, there’s no reason to think that any story could have salvaged its chances. Not when films like my personal favorite of the international nominees, Girl with the Needle, are being made elsewhere.
After winning the 2024 Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Mati Diop’s Dahomey was the main hope for Africa’s chances at the 2025 Oscars.
4. East Africa’s curse of NGO Cinema
One of the better films made last year came from Kenya. Titled Nawi, it followed a girl seeking education whose father has decided to give out in marriage. It was supported by an NGO and has a very anti-child-bride message. I thought it was one of the better films from the continent seeking a nomination at the Oscars. And yet, it had an obvious limitation as all films backed in some obvious way by NGOs do at the Oscars.
It would take a surfeit of artistry for films of the sort to thrive at award ceremonies, which is a problem for filmmakers in East Africa, a region where filmmaking at a certain level is remains heavily in the hands of bodies intent on doing good over doing great cinema. At an interview in Cannes last year, Doreen Kilimbe, the Tanzanian producer, told me that while “western involvement in filmmaking can bring much-needed resources and global visibility…it can also lead to tensions around creative control and cultural representation.”
Indeed.
5. Mati Diop
Ahead of the Oscars 2025 nominations, the biggest hope was Mati Diop. Dahomey, her film from last year, worked quite well in Europe, where European guilt concerning stolen African artefacts might have swayed the jury in addition to the well-made texture of her film.
But Americans don’t have that kind of relationship with the continent. In other words, while in Europe repatriating African artifacts is a newsy issue, it is not the same in America. The US considers its own original sin as slave trade and frequently rewards films on that subject. Europe has different politics. So, while Berlin awarded a docufiction on the subject of stolen African art its biggest award, America barely even looked its way.
In a conversation I had with Diop last year, she told me she didn’t think Berlin had as much to say about the Oscars, certainly not in the way Cannes does. I wondered about this and asked her publicity person what she thought of Diop’s statement. We agreed that Berlin also mattered to the Academy. Well, although there are other factors involved with these things, it certainly seems like Diop was correct. After all, Emilia Perez and Anora were both winners at Cannes.
The Berlin Film Festival has already taken place this year and African films didn’t exactly do well there. We now look forward to Cannes.
Hopefully, we see a better return for African films there. It would be nice if an African film did a Sean Baker or an Anora and makes it all the way to the way to the 2026 Oscars ceremony. Until then, all eyes return to our local cinemas and production outfits. The work must begin from home.
