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Months after award-winning Nollywood actress, producer and director Genevieve Nnaji was invited to be a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the star has been selected as one of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) ambassadors.
The 2005 Africa Movie Academy Award winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role whose film Lionheart was disqualified as a submission for Best International Feature Film submission for the Oscars in 2019 will join other 49 acclaimed filmmakers for the festival scheduled to kick off on September 10, 2020.
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Nnaji, according to TIFF, will, alongside Nicole Kidman, Martin Scorsese, Priyanka Chopra and Lulu Wang, to name a few, help ‘deliver a strong festival in a year that will see the event, for the first time in its history, launch a digital platform where films will premiere as “physical, socially distanced screenings”’.
“The pandemic has hit TIFF hard, but we’ve responded by going back to our original inspiration - to bring the very best in film to the broadest possible audience,” said TIFF Artistic Director and Co-Head, Cameron Bailey. “We have listened to this year’s urgent calls for greater representation of under-represented voices. You’ll see that this year at the Festival.”
American actress and filmmaker Meryl Streep, New Zealand TV producer and director Taika Waititi, French director Mati Diop, as well as American actor and environmentalist Joaquin Phoenix, will at the virtual ceremony courtesy of its annual TIFF Tribute Awards, be honoured for their remarkable talent and immense contribution to the industry.
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Films that will screen include; UK’s Ammonite (Francis Lee), Denmarks Another Round, (Thomas Vinterberg), USA’s Bruised (Halle Berry) and True Mothers by director Naomi Kawase (Japan), among others.
