The 41 years aged Nigerian Actress and Producer, Genevieve Nnaji, has been summoned to be a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the organization which hands out the Oscars.
Genevieve, who starred and directed in Lionheart, which was Nigeria’s first-ever Oscar submission for best international feature film in 2019 revealed reaching this milestone via her socials and this means she will be able to vote for Oscar winners. This comes just months after her own film was disqualified as a submission.
Meanwhile, the reason as to why this film was disqualified is because it was largely in English yet films in this category must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track”. However, the dialogue in 1 hour-35-minutes film was in English except for an 11-minute section in the Igbo language.
At the announcement of her membership to the Academy yesterday on Wednesday 1st July 2020, the actress was so excited and she couldn’t hesitate to reveal how it is an honour for her to join the Oscars. Therefore as a new member, Nnaji now has an automatic right to vote for the Oscar winners for 10 years, according to one Hollywood Reporter.
Genevieve’s Journey from Nollywood to Oscars
Nnaji started acting at a very tender age of eight, when she appeared for one popular TV soap Ripples. Her Nollywood career took off when she played one of the ogbonge roles as female armed robber.
Genevieve was born in Mbaise, Imo state, and grew up in Southwestern Nigeria, Lagos, in a middle-class home where her father was an engineer well as her mother was a teacher. In brief about her studies, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in creative arts at the University of Lagos. While at the university, she began auditioning for acting jobs in Nollywood.
In 1998, at the age of 19, Nnaji was introduced into the growing Nigerian film industry with the movie Most Wanted. Her subsequent movies include Last Party, Mark of the Beast, and Ijele. In 2010, she starred in the award-winning film Ije; The Journey.
She has starred in over 200 Nollywood movies over the last two decades and her rise to prominence coincided with the exponential growth of Nollywood, as the Nigerian film industry is called across Africa.
