321 Features vie for Oscars, but only 266 for Best Picture

by Cláudio Alves

Though a likely Best Visual Effects nominee, THE CREATOR is ineligible in the Best Picture race.

While we're still recovering from last night's Golden Globes (yay, Lily Gladstone!), the Academy has released its final eligibility lists pertaining to most categories outside the music, shorts, and specialized feature ones. Overall, 321 films will vie for Hollywood's little golden men. However, only 266 can compete for the Best Picture honor, a first in Oscar history. Such productions as Godland, Mami Wata, The Creator, The Marvels, and the new Ant-Man movie are out of the running. This year marks the start of RAISE - Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards – to whom films must submit a confidential form to guarantee Best Picture eligibility…

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Review: "Mami Wata" Brings West African Folklore to the Big Screen

by Cláudio Alves

As if dipped in ink, the screen is a void, shadows so thick they seem to swallow the light. Gravity-pulling like a black hole, this emptiness must be broken. So, it is with water leading the way, that eternal life-giver, life-taker. And even before we see its tide, we feel an ocean calling. It emerges in white lines, foam on cresting waves, their back-and-forth movement an Atlantic embrace. No character has invoked her yet, but we already sense the immensity of Mami Wata, the mother-like water deity that appears across African myth and the diaspora. In a feat of miraculous cinema, Nigerian director C.J. 'Fiery' Obasi has used his third feature to summon the spirit, inviting us to commune with her. 

That's not to say Mami Wata – now in theaters – is a film aiming solely at religious ecstasy. If possible, it has even greater ambitions. Its tale is the story of a matriarchal society threatened by patriarchy and treacherous progress, of a sisterhood trying to resolve ancient contradictions while preserving the old ways into a changing world…

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