Maldives president may be nominated for Best Actor for THE ISLAND PRESIDENT

By David Rose / The Telegraph, UK

A storm is brewing over the otherwise tranquil and turquoise lagoons of sinking Maldives after a Wiki cable leak last night revealed political horse-trading at the upcoming next year’s Oscars over whether Maldives president and the United Nations’ current environment champion of the earth Mohamed Nasheed is eligible for a Best Actor award for Academy Award-winner Jon Shenks’ ambitious and biting docudrama THE ISLAND PRESIDENT in the wake of the documentary last week winning the People’s Choice award at the international Toronto film festival in the state of Canada, North America.

AfterImage’s realistic look into behind- the-scenes of the failed Copenhagen earth summit in 2009, in the context of Nasheed’s first year in office after toppling over a 30-year-dictatorship, was previously not eligible for a run at the 2012 Oscars to be held in March at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles -- the seat of Hollywood -- when its producers decided to give its official release only early next year in North America. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences require each feature, documentary, short film and animation to be screened for the public at any theater in Los Angeles for a running 10 days before the 19th of December each year in order to qualify for the next year’s Academy Awards ™.

Traditionally the Best Actor category was nominated only from a selection of the fictional categories such as feature films and short films and never from the realistic section which includes feature documentaries and documentary shorts. The fact that former US Vice President and environmental fighter Al Gore’s Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, won the Oscar for best documentary was a precedent that proved that the traditionally liberal and green Hollywood has a “personal bias in favor of anything to do with the environment” according to Hollywood critic Variety and watchdog The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to Gore, only two other political leaders have won international entertainment awards – former US President Bill Clinton for the audio rendition of his biography MY LIFE, and his wife and current US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s IT TAKES A VILLAGE which both won in the audio book category of the Grammy awards, the US’s most prestigious awards in music.

Responding to the mind-plumbing reactions to the Wiki leaked cable, Nasheed’s foreign press secretary Paul Roberts told The Telegraph that “while we are deeply humbled” by what “such a prestigious artificial Wonder could additionally do for the poster boy image of Nasheed”, he was concerned that ordinary Maldivians -- who were only recently found out not to be really literate at all in contrast to the 98-percent-literacy statistical claim of former president Gayoom -- “may once again misunderstand the implications and complications” of such an award.

“Ever since Harper and Collins Unlimited announced that it would omit the Maldives from its Times Atlas edition that is to be comprehensively published next decade, we are being misunderstood. For instance, we are baffled as to why opposition MP and Gayoom’s spokesman Ahmed Mahlouf, who earlier said that everything this MDP government tells is a lie, now suddenly overnight claims that Nasheed’s underwater Cabinet meeting was not actually a publicity stunt and has therefore now usurped Lynas’ traditional role in the fight against climate changer denier James Delingpole," said Roberts, adding that Delingpole "will definitely stand to lose" as he has only a single PhD in sinking islands while President Nasheed's environment adviser and climate change believer Mark Lynas -- who also makes a courtesy cameo guest role in THE ISLAND PRESIDENT --  has a double Masters in emerging islands.

“We couldn’t believe when Mahloof texted his followers and supporters that no government can lie over something this big. While this is a small relief, and now opens the possibility of buying Mahloof too for another cool 9 million pounds, I mean Rufiya, and bring him to our side, Nasheed at this time remains apprehensive that if he is nominated for a Best Actor award, however sincere the American Academy is over this, such a nomination in the ‘best actor’ category would be misconstrued by not only the opposition but the large percentage of illiterate Maldivians as Nasheed having deceived the Maldivian people over the environment by faking everything including his eternally carefree and brutally honest infectious personality.”

Nasheed’s domestic press secretary Mohamed Zuhair insisted to The Telegraph in no blunt terms that “the President never acts.”

“And I don’t mean that with regard to our current morbid state of economic affairs,” he said. “What I mean is he is always being himself, his real self. He is always candid and what you see is what you get -- like they say in the tired old cliché ‘seeing is believing.’ Everything you see in THE ISLAND PRESIDENT is real and we don’t mind if the Academy honors him by bestowing a Lifetime Achievement Award rather than a best actor nomination because even a Maldivian child knows what it means by to ‘act’.”

A BBC journalist, who claims to have seen THE ISLAND PRESIDENT from a pirated copy although such copies are not legal to be stored in the hard drives of Britain’s state broadcaster, told The Telegraph that if anyone deserves to be nominated from the documentary, it was Maldives “cool environment secretary” Mohamed Aslam.

“While Nasheed’s candidness will definitely strike home the message that sea level rise is very much real for sinking islands like the Maldives, thereby throwing cold water over environment skeptics such as Delingpole who is the mortal enemy of Nasheed’s environmental advisor Mark Lynas, what makes THE ISLAND PRESIDENT’s long 101 running minutes bearable is the gripping screen presence and personality of Mr. Aslam. If anyone should succeed Mr. Nasheed, then Mr. Aslam is definitely our bloke.”

The Maldives Media Council, which is currently tasked with verifying erroneous reporting in the local media, including the clarification of whether Maldives will not be included in any world map that will be published after 10 years due to Nasheed's fake publicity stunts such as an underwater Cabinet meeting, refused to comment on the leaks.

However, an opposition-leaning board member of the Council told The Telegraph on condition of anonymity that the Council "wouldn't refuse any Best Actor accolades" for the President.

"Ever since I saw Nasheed utter the ominous words 'If we don't act now' in a PSA (public service advertisement) called SEAL THE DEAL, I knew the President was not happy just with acting up on both the local and international stage and that therefore, he would take his acting to new heights of deception in order to win sympathy for Maldives' fledling economy and failing democracy. So I am not surprised that he is now trying to dupe everybody by trying to pass off falsehoods in the disguise of such a credible and non-fictional genre such as a documentary."