STEPHANIE OKEREKE LINUS EMERGES AS NEW HEAD OF NIGERIA’S OSCAR COMMITTEE

Stephanie Okereke Linus born as Stephanie Onyekachi Okereke October 2nd 1982, is a Nigerian Veteran actress, movie director and model. She began acting in the 90s and has achieved a lot so far. She has received several awards and nominations for her work as an actress, including the 2003 Reel Award for Best Actress, the 2006 Afro Hollywood Award for Best Actress, and three nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the African Movie Academy Awards in 2005, 2009 and 2010.She was also the runner up for the Most Beautiful Girl In Nigeria beauty pageant of 2002. In 2011, she was honoured by the Nigerian government with a national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic, MFR.

Her appointment came after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) approved the formation of a restructured 14-member NOSC (Nigerian Oscar Selection Committee) team and Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi stepped down as the head of the Oscars committee. With Nigeria’s no-show at the 2022 Oscars based on a no-submission vote by the former committee members, with the re-approval of the NOSC, and its newly emerged chairperson, hope is now renewed. PUNCH (Nigerian newspaper) reports that the new leadership comes with newly constituted members. They include veteran actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, managing director for the Nigerian Film Corporation Chidia Maduekwe, president of the Directors Guild of Nigeria Victor Okhai, former president of the Directors Guild of Nigeria Andy Amenechi, theatre practitioner Yibo Kikoko and director Izu Ojukwu. They joined other members like director John Njamah, cinematographer Adetokunbo Odubawo, Nollywood actress Meg Otanwa, director Dimeji Ajibola, Nollywood actress Ngozi Okafor, cinematographer Emem Isong and writer/director Jude Idada.

As the 96th Academy Awards approaches in the upcoming year, the newly formed NOSC (Nigerian Oscar Selection Committee) team will be tasked with collecting, screening, and voting on entries to represent Nigeria in the IFF (International Feature Film) category. The IFF category, formerly called the Best Foreign Language Award, is for feature-length films containing 50% or more of non-English dialogue produced outside of the United States.

Delia Nyadi