Nollywood Slacks as Tunisian Film Gets Nomination for 2026 Golden Globes (Entertainment)
The Voice of Hind Rajab - Tunisia makes foreign film nominees ' list of the Golden Globes. It is also under consideration at the Academy Awards for Motion Pictures dubbed the Oscars.
The film, released in September 2025, is based on a harrowing real life events surrounding the 911 call centering on Hind Rajah, a six year old Palestinian girl trapped under the rubble after an Isr@eli attack on G@z@.
It's not just a triumph for Africa, it underlines the West's growing affinity with rhetoric against Isr@eli onslaught in G@z@. Before now, such a film would have been censored out somehow and not go that far.
This is a wake up call for the Nigerian Motion Picture Industry called Nollywood. Nollywood has done great. Things I will love to see is when my country's film practitioners decide it's high time we take it higher with production of not just for profit films alone but for producing aesthetically didactic and reflective films on international issues that will better humanity. This is a Tunisian film based on actual events in Gaza.
But I guess, " na award we go chop" ingrained profiteering ethos remains the barrier. Nollywood hides this nowadays under the toga of cultural nationalistic fervour that it does not need foreign validation imbued by getting such awards to thrive.
This is self defeatism at its worst. Governments of nations can individually thrive but they all converge at the UN Plaza in New York every year. Exclusion from that assembly portends doom for any nayion. That's politics own Oscars. In the increasingly globalist world thriving on recognizability and influence which ripples also towards the much-coveted profits, no industry is or can be an island.
Writer and producer Kaouther Ben Hania leveraged on the networking she garnered during previous awards season promotional run for Four Daughters, a previous film she submitted in various films awards for the US film awards season. Unsurprisingly now, Hania has famee actor Brad Pitts-owned Plan B Entertainment on the production.
That is a power move. With this, she's poised to not just stand on the Golden Globes podium as a winner but also make a winner's acceptance speech at the Actors Awards (formerly SAG Awards) and hold the Oscar statuette at the Academy Awards.
Pitt is a Hollywood powerhouse. He is also a shrewd master veteran of how to minecraft films produced by his production film for prestigious awards. Three of the company's films, The Departed, 12 Years A Slave and Moonlight have won the overall most prestigious Academy Award for Best Picture. This happened besides individual academy awards won by casts of these films.
Oh, yes, the cast. The cast of this movie comprises African Arab stars like Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel, and Clara Khoury. But, with Plan B engine behind it, it thunders into assemblage of global recognition by the great award panels that most matter.
All these, while Hania jauntily smiles to the bank also.
Nollywood, do you crave to make millions in dollar film profits as well as win prestigious global film awards? Think bigger. Unleash that lion-roaring "Naija" irrepressible can-do spirit!
We will get there too. One happy day.
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