Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, known in the entertainment industry for his incisive reviews of Nollywood films and Nigerian pop music, has been named an international voter ahead of the 2024 Golden Globes.
According to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the body responsible for the awards, international voters must reside outside of the US. They must also possess “verified entertainment journalistic clippings for international media outlets, including print, broadcast, radio, photography and online.”
“I have been a big fan of awards since I was a kid,” Aigbokhaevbolo said,“and I’ve been writing about films for quite a while. So, it is a personal highlight to be able to take part in a long-running global award for cinema and TV like the Globes. I don’t think the kid that grew up in Lagos, Lokoja, and Bida would have seen this coming.”
Along with his often-robustwriting about Nollywood films, Aigbokhaevbolo has reviewed films showing at and written reports on several festivals, including the Durban Film Festival in South Africa, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Berlin Film Festival in Germany, Cannes, Sundance in the US, and Africa’s oldest film festival, FESPACO, in Burkina Faso.
In 2021, he was invited to the Netherlands for a panel on media diversity hosted by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2022, he was invited to the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. In the same year, he spoke about Nollywood and Nigeria’s budding tech scene at the Dubai media expo CABSAT in the United Arab Emirates.
Although his writing career began while he was a Pharmacy school undergraduate at the University of Benin, Aigbokhaevbolo’s first major recognition as a writer and film critic came in 2014, when he was the only candidate to be chosen by all three juries at programmes for young critics in Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa. He attended the European programmes in 2015 and the South African one in 2014, but it was the first time that one candidate received invitations to all three programmes in the same year.
“Because that happened relatively early in my career, it made me believe that I could take this strange path of writing seriously about film a lot more seriously,” he said.
A year later, he proved his versatility in writing about culture when his music writing received the 2015 AFRIMA award for Entertainment Journalist of the Year. By then, he was already leading a team of writers from Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia as the Anglophone West African editor at Music In Africa, a project supported by the German Cultural Centre (otherwise known as the Goethe Institut). While in that role, he was recognized by the popular Felabration festival for curating a series of articles on the life and work of FelaAnikulapoKuti.
Over the course of his career, Aigbokhaevbolo has contributed writing and reporting to the New York Review, Chimurenga, the Washington Post, the Africa Report, the London Review of Books, the Guardian UK, and the British Film Institute’s magazine, Sight and Sound. He lives in Lagos and regularly writes about cinema for an international audience at The Film Verdict, a US-based digital publication.
Speaking about his invitation to the Golden Globes as an international voter, he said it was part of a growing recognition of the African contribution to the world of cinema.
“This year, we had homegrown filmmakers show their work at prestigious festivals like Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival. I think of my Golden Globes invitation as a part of that developing story.”
Oris Aigbokhaevbolo Joins 2024 Golden Globes as International Voter
Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, known in the entertainment industry for his incisive reviews of Nollywood films and Nigerian pop music, has been named an international voter ahead of the 2024 Golden Globes.
According to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the body responsible for the awards, international voters must reside outside of the US. They must also possess “verified entertainment journalistic clippings for international media outlets, including print, broadcast, radio, photography and online.”
“I have been a big fan of awards since I was a kid,” Aigbokhaevbolo said,“and I’ve been writing about films for quite a while. So, it is a personal highlight to be able to take part in a long-running global award for cinema and TV like the Globes. I don’t think the kid that grew up in Lagos, Lokoja, and Bida would have seen this coming.”
Along with his often-robustwriting about Nollywood films, Aigbokhaevbolo has reviewed films showing at and written reports on several festivals, including the Durban Film Festival in South Africa, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Berlin Film Festival in Germany, Cannes, Sundance in the US, and Africa’s oldest film festival, FESPACO, in Burkina Faso.
In 2021, he was invited to the Netherlands for a panel on media diversity hosted by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2022, he was invited to the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. In the same year, he spoke about Nollywood and Nigeria’s budding tech scene at the Dubai media expo CABSAT in the United Arab Emirates.
Although his writing career began while he was a Pharmacy school undergraduate at the University of Benin, Aigbokhaevbolo’s first major recognition as a writer and film critic came in 2014, when he was the only candidate to be chosen by all three juries at programmes for young critics in Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa. He attended the European programmes in 2015 and the South African one in 2014, but it was the first time that one candidate received invitations to all three programmes in the same year.
“Because that happened relatively early in my career, it made me believe that I could take this strange path of writing seriously about film a lot more seriously,” he said.
A year later, he proved his versatility in writing about culture when his music writing received the 2015 AFRIMA award for Entertainment Journalist of the Year. By then, he was already leading a team of writers from Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia as the Anglophone West African editor at Music In Africa, a project supported by the German Cultural Centre (otherwise known as the Goethe Institut). While in that role, he was recognized by the popular Felabration festival for curating a series of articles on the life and work of FelaAnikulapoKuti.
Over the course of his career, Aigbokhaevbolo has contributed writing and reporting to the New York Review, Chimurenga, the Washington Post, the Africa Report, the London Review of Books, the Guardian UK, and the British Film Institute’s magazine, Sight and Sound. He lives in Lagos and regularly writes about cinema for an international audience at The Film Verdict, a US-based digital publication.
Speaking about his invitation to the Golden Globes as an international voter, he said it was part of a growing recognition of the African contribution to the world of cinema.
“This year, we had homegrown filmmakers show their work at prestigious festivals like Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival. I think of my Golden Globes invitation as a part of that developing story.”
