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"The Milkmaid" tells the story of two sisters
who are abducted from their village during a deadly attack by
militants in northeast Nigeria. It has been submitted by Nigeria
as its entry for international feature consideration at the
Academy Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce
its nominations for the Academy Awards on March 15.
"Even having made it this far is a huge encouragement to
filmmakers who don't necessarily want to tell the most
commercial type of stories," Ovbiagele - who wrote and directed
the film - told Reuters in an interview in Nigeria's commercial
capital, Lagos.
The insurgency by militant group Boko Haram has killed more than
30,000 people and forced about 2 million to flee their homes
since 2009. The group attained global notoriety in 2014 with the
abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls in the northeastern town
of Chibok.
"I felt it was important that we put some backstories and some
personalities behind all these casualty statistics," said
Ovbiagele.
The film has already won five Africa Movie Academy Awards,
including Best Film. Although Nigeria is an English-speaking
country, it is eligible for the Oscars best international film
category because the characters address each other in the Hausa,
Arabic and Fulfulde languages spoken locally.
Anthonieta Kalunta, lead actress in the movie, said she hoped
those judging "The Milkmaid" would see the film as being told
from "a very beautiful perspective", despite the subject matter.
For Ovbiagele, the film's success will draw attention to the
plight of hidden victims.
"The victims of insurgency were not getting the attention that I
felt they truly deserved," he said.
(Reporting by Angela Ukomadu in Lagos and Abraham Achirga in
Abuja; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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