NOSC reaches ‘no revote’ verdict on 2023 Oscars despite AMPAS intervention

The Nigeria Official Selection Committee (NOSC) has maintained its verdict on not entering for the International Feature Film (IFF) award of the 2023 Oscars after weeks of internal conflict.

NOSC, last month, failed to submit an entry to represent Nigeria in the 2023 IFF, a situation that filmmakers had blamed on the introduction of a “no film eligible” category in the framework for the committee’s internal voting.

This move caused tension within the committee, culminating in the resignation of some of NOSC’s members.

A few pained by the turn of events wrote to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organisers of the Oscars, seeking its intervention to allow filmmakers to vote again and submit an entry.

AMPAS later granted the NOSC a one-week extension to reconvene, a grace that was to expire on October 21.

An insider who spoke to TheCable Lifestyle anonymously confirmed that the NOSC maintained its stance on not submitting an entry but said the committee would issue an official statement to communicate this to be public.

The NOSC has since been divided against itself, with members arguing that redoing the voting process amounts to asking filmmakers who already voted consciously to backtrack on their judgments about the earlier vetted entries.

However, with NOSC’s silence on the matter, details have emerged on the verdict from the committee’s meeting.

It is gathered that NOSC convened on October 20, a day before the IFF deadline, and reached a “no revote” verdict.

The entries that earlier made NOSC’s final selection process and were voted on by its 15-member committee on September 3 were Biyi Bandele’s ‘Eleshin Oba’, Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Anikulapo’, and Femi Adebayo’s ‘King of Thieves’.

In the second ballot following the AMPAS intervention, nine of the NOSC’s 15 members opted to not revote.

1. Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi – No Revote
2. Mahmood Ali-Balogun – Revote
3. Mildred Okwo – Revote
4. Ego Boyo – Revote
5. Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde – No Revote
6. Stephanie Linus – No Revote
7. Shaibu Husseini – Revote
8. Bruce Ayonote –  No Revote
9. Adetokunbo Odubawo – No Revote
10. Izu Ojukwu – No Revote
11. Moses Babatope – Revote
12. Yibo Koko – No Revote
13. Meg Otanwa – No Revote
14. Kenneth Gyang – Revote
15. John Njamah – No Revote

In a letter earlier questioning the AMPAS intervention in the submission debacle, Chineze Anyaene, the NOSC chairperson, had asked the IFF office if it was mandatory for competing countries to submit a film every year.

The chairperson said NOSC finds it “strange” that IFF would request a reconvening of the committee to redefine its position after AMPAS had iterated that it doesn’t interfere in the outcome of voting processes at the country level.

This is not the first NOSC would declare that no entry submitted to it was adjudged eligible to compete in the IFF.

After making significant inroads in 2021 with ‘Milkmaid’ and being dropped from the first shortlist, Nigeria didn’t come up with a movie to vie in the 2022 edition as the NOSC filed that none of its options were good enough.