Kenyan film maker Judy Kibinge joins The Oscars

Renowned film maker Judy Kibinge has become the first Kenyan to join the Oscar Academy. Ms Kibinge is among 774 people invited to join the club this year.

This is the second year in a row that the institution has broken its own record after inviting 683 new members last year.

Kibinge will be among the new class, representing 57 countries, and according to the Academy, it is 39 percent female.

Upon receiving the news, she took to social media and posted, ‘Whoa!’ ‘Blink! Blink! What a list. Honoured!’

Her nomination comes after black actors and activists in Hollywood complained that the Oscars were too white.

After Lupita Nyong’o won the Oscar in 2013, the following year no person of colour was nominated for the prestigious awards.

Ms Kibige’s invitation came on the heels of one of the Academy’s most diverse Oscar ceremonies to date, during which the highest number of black winners took home awards in AMPAS history which included films like Fences which saw Viola Davis and Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali win in the supporting actors’ categories.

NUMBER OF WOMEN INCREASED

According to the Academy, between 2015 and 2017, the number of women invited into AMPAS has increased by 359 percent, while the number of people of color has jumped to 331 percent across the same frame. Seven branches have also invited more women than men, namely the actors, casting directors, costume designers, designers, documentarians, executives and film editors.

“We’re proud to invite our newest class to the Academy. The entire motion picture community is what we make of it,” the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement after the announcement. “It’s up to all of us to ensure that new faces and voices are seen and heard, and to take a shot on the next generation the way someone took a shot on each of us.”

Kibinge was born in 1967 in Nairobi and her family moved to Washington D.C. in America in 1969 when she was two. At the tender age of seven years old after she won a children’s writing competition in America before her family relocated back in Kenya.

She attended Kenya High School before moving to the UK for her post-secondary education. She was first enrolled in Malvern Girls College, before attending Art College in Birmingham. She later proceeded to Manchester Polytechnic and graduated in Design for Communication Media.

The Kenyan filmmaker and writer is best known for has writing, producing, and directing a number of films such as Something Necessary (2013), Dangerous Affair (2002), and Project Daddy (2004). She is also known for establishing DocuBox, which is a documentary film fund for African filmmakers to help them produce and distribute their film.

Something Necessary was screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and is about a woman’s struggle of living in Kenya after the elections unrest in 2007. Her documentary Coming of Age won an award at the African Movie Magic Awards in 2009 for Best Short Documentary category. Dangerous Affair won an award at the Zanzibar Film Festival.

Ms Kibinge is better known for making films which often provides real life problems as opposed to fantasy and magical imaginations. Her movies are about personal issues between a couple which audience can easily be related to. They are also about social problems occurring in Africa such as colonialism, war, and hunger.

She is also a founding member of Kwani Trust, which is an African magazine based in Kenya.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Under the leadership of president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy has undergone an aggressive push for more diversity within its ranks, an initiative that has seen a large number of women (46 percent of a record 683 movie professionals in 2016 and racial minorities (41 percent of that same figure) asked to join the prestigious industry group in recent years.

In 2015, “Oscars So White or Oscar Whitewash”, made its round after people of colour in Hollywood called for the boycott of the annual ceremony after no people of color were nominated in any of the major categories.

There was an article in The Atlantic which indicated who the Oscar voters are. They are 94 percent white, 76 percent male, and the average age is 63 years old … and they might not be as interested in seeing Selma.

This was after a best picture nod for the Martin Luther King, Jr biopic Selma and a best director nomination for Alexander Iñarritu, were the only ones nominated in 2015.

After the boycott calls, the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Cheryl Boone Isaacs, forced The Academy to release a statement via its official Twitter account to address the controversy surrounding the lack of diversity on the list of nominees. Isaacs acknowledged the widespread criticism, and pledged to make necessary improvements.

WORLD DEMOGRAPHICS

The Academy has vowed to make its membership better reflect the world demographics, after many years of criticism that women, racial minorities and international artists were under-represented. As a result, the number of new-member invitations has risen steadily.

Among the high-profile actors newly invited to the Academy are “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot, “Moonlight” Oscar nominee Naomie Harris, Donald Glover, Chris Hemsworth, Riz Ahmed, Adam Driver, Dwayne Johnson, Priyanka Chopra, Leslie Jones, Betty White, Amy Poehler, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Margot Robbie, Channing Tatum, Kristen Stewart, Shailene Woodley, Ruth Negga, and Rupert Grint.

This marks an uptick from the previous 28 percent, and the 27 percent in 2016. Seven of the branches — actors, casting directors, costume designers, designers, documentary, executives, and film editors — invited more women than men this year.

Additionally, people of colour make up 30 percent of the new class — a significant statistic following the #OscarsSoWhite protest. According to the Academy’s announcement, there has been a 331 percent increase of people of colour invited to join the Academy from 2015-2017.