Get to Know the Africans Invited to Join the Oscars This Year

Alice Diop - Senegal

More than a decade-and-a-half into making gripping documentaries exploring the multiple layers of urban French life, Alice Diop made her debut feature film, Saint Omer. The legal drama is inspired on a real life case of alleged infanticide, and it amplifies Diop’s prowess at telling marginalized stories through film. Saint Omer earned the French Senegalese director the Grand Jury prize after premiering at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, and it secured her place as “one of France’s best filmmakers.”

Diop has been invited to join the Oscars directors branch.

Sally El Hosaini - Egypt

Sally El Hosaini has lived several lives in one. Born to a Welsh mother and an Egyptian father, Hosaini lived in Cairo till she was 16, spending long vacations in Swansea. After university, she moved to Yemen to teach English, worked with Amnesty International, and began her filmmaking career with documentaries in Baghdad during the peak of the war in Iraq in the early to mid 2000s.

In 2012, she released her debut directorial feature, My Brother the Devil, a coming of age film centered around two sons of Egyptian immigrants in London. The Swimmers, currently streaming on Netflix, followed a decade later. Both films were critically acclaimed upon release. Her latest film is Unicorns, a compelling queer romantic drama co-directed with the star of her directorial debut film, James Krishna Floyd.

Hosaini has been invited to join the Oscars directors branch.

James D. Ramsay - South Africa

Cinematography is Jamie Ramsay’s obsession, one that evolved from a mild case of dyslexia as a child and being gifted a camera by his grandfather. “For me, a film set is an extremely intimate environment where so much subtext and nuance exists in body language and subtle facial expression,” he told Variety back in 2021. At last December’s British Independent Film Awards, the South African DOP won Best Cinematography for his work in All of Us Strangers, the critically acclaimed film by Andrew Haigh. Ramsay has been invited to join the Oscars cinematographers branch.

Saïd Hamich Benlarbi - Morocco

Saïd Hamich Benlarbi is a bonafide film veteran in North Africa and its diaspora. A producer and director, he’s been part of several well-executed projects, primarily helming some on his own. As a producer, he worked on Nabil Ayouch’s Much Loved, a seminal film about sex work in Marrakech, and more than a handful other films. Produced and directed by Benlarb, Across the Sea, premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Queer Palm. He has been invited to join the Oscars producers branch.

The following filmmakers were invited to join the Oscars documentary branch:

Moses Bwayo - Uganda

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the last Oscars, Bobi Wine: The People’s President captured the attempt of its titular character to turn the political tides of Uganda during its last presidential election. Co-director Moses Bwayo was caught in the targeted assault, hit in the face by a rubber bullet on one occasion and getting arrested multiple times while filming the doc. His resilience and resolve, helped by his background as a journalist, are defining elements of his now-seminal work.

Aïcha Macky - Niger

Across her small but profound catalog, Aïcha Macky has tackled the societal constructs in Niger, especially using her vantage point as a woman to share compelling perspectives into various issues. Part of that is credited to an accidental friendship with a woman who wasn’t allowed to inherit any of her deceased father’s properties because of her gender. In her critically acclaimed 2016 documentary, The Fruitless Tree, Macky explores infertility and its social treatment in Niger. Following that is 2021’s Zinder, named after the city she was raised in. The documentary is centered around the Kara-Kara district, delving into the lives of young people as they navigate and try to escape the grip of gang culture.

Vincent Moloi - South Africa

For many, South African filmmaker Vincent Moloiis best known for directing the seminal township renaissance show, Tjovitjo. However, his extensive catalog also includes several documentary features. Possibly the most popular is the highly praised Skulls, of My People, about a small tribe in Namibia fighting for the return of the skulls of their people taken by the Germans for racial science profiling after the genocide of 1904. The documentary was shot while the tribe was seeking reparations and also demanded the finding of these tests.

Nadim Cheikhrouha - Tunisia

French Tunisian producer Nadim Cheikhrouha has been a driving force behind some of the most acclaimed films out of North Africa. After working for several film companies, he founded Tanit Films, through which he’s produced Mohamed Ben Attia’s HEDI, which won Best First Feature at the 2015 Berlinale, Phillipe Faucon’s Fatima, winner of Best Film at the 2016 César Awards, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Beauty and the Dogs, Tunisia’s Oscars selection, and many more.

Ousmane Samassékou - Mali

Malian filmmaker Ousmane Samassékou has directed two documentaries and they show his eye for immediately compelling themes and subjects. His 2015 doc, Les héritiers de la colline (The Heirs of the Hill) portrays the political tussle between key players in AEEM, the students’ governing body of the University of Bamako, as they struggle for power by any means necessary in a manner reminiscent of typical African politicians.

Following that is The Last Shelter, in which Samassékou focuses on a resident in the House of Migration, a facility in Gao, northern Mali, where thousands of people take short breaks to rest while traveling through the Sahel. It won the CIVIS Media Prize for a story that “tells of the fortunes of these migrants, empathetically but never obtrusively, close but never encroaching.”