Nollywood actress and movie producer, Omoni Oboli has been announced as a Toronto International Film (TIFF) ambassador for the festival’s campaign. Sh
Nollywood actress and movie producer, Omoni Oboli has been announced as a Toronto International Film (TIFF) ambassador for the festival’s campaign. She was selected alongside Jennifer Baichwal, Carol Nguyen, Ann Marie Fleming and Ashley McKenzie as female ambassadors.
The campaign with the theme, ‘Share Her Journey,’ is an initiative of TIFF meant to champion female storytellers for movies. The whole essence of the campaign is a five year plan for an increased drive in female participation, skills, and opportunities for women behind and in front of the camera as well as prioritising gender parity with a focus on mentorship, skills development, media literacy, and activity for young people.
The film festival which holds annually in September is kicking off the campaign with $3 million to support it. The five-year funding push will support a three-month residency program for female creators, develop a speaker series about gender equity and gender identities in film, and design classroom resources to help educators interested in the subject of women and gender in cinema.
This move comes as women trail men in terms of representation behind the camera as only 7 per cent of all directors working on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016 are female. That was a decline of two percentage points from the level achieved in 2015.
Omoni Oboli made this announcement on her social media.
“Guess who just got announced as one of @tiff_net‘s ambassadors for the ‘Share Her Journey’ campaign! I’m so glad to be one of those inspiring the next generation of female filmmakers. Thanks for the opportunity Toronto International Film Festival. The world will watch my stories.”
There is no doubt that Omoni Oboli was selected for her incredible work as a script writer as well as director. A graduate of the prestigious New York Film academy, Omoni Oboli has a number of screenplays to her credit, including ‘Fatal Imagination’, ‘Being Mrs Elliott’, ‘The First Lady’, ‘Wives on Strike’ and her most recent work, ‘Okafor’s law’.
Besides the numerous award she has worn locally, Omoni Oboli in 2010 won the award for Best Actress Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Movie Awards, and the award for Best Actress at the Harlem International Film Festival
