Actress and filmmaker Omoni Oboli has been announced alongside other international filmmakers, as 2017 Toronto International Film Festival ambassador, for the campaign to support female filmmakers, tagged ‘Share Her Journey.’
“Guess who just got announced as one of TIFF ambassadors for the ‘Share Her Journey’ campaign,” said the mother of three boys while announcing the news.
“I’m so glad to be one those inspiring the next generation of female filmmakers. Thanks for the opportunity.”
The film festival which unfolds every September is kicking off a $3 million campaign to support the campaign.
According to the newsletter, Mrs Oboli will be joining the likes of Carol Nguyen, a teen filmmaker who dominated the TIFF Next Wave division of Jump Cuts, taking home the top prizes in 2014, 2015, 2016; Jennifer Baichwal, producer of Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark; and Oscar –nominated filmmaker Deepa Mehta.
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. The move comes as women trail men in terms of representation behind the camera — only 7% of all directors working on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016. That was a decline of two percentage points from the level achieved in 2015.
Nollywood Observer 