3 Messages

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96 Points

Monday, July 26th, 2021

Acknowledged

Adding South Sudan as a Country of Origin

Is it possible to get South Sudan added as a country you can pick for Country of Origin?  

South Sudan has its own film festival, the Juba International Film Fest, and South Sudanese people have posted their films online.  Letterboxd and TMDB also recognize South Sudan as a country that movies come from.

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Selected Oldest First

Employee

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18.2K Messages

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321.2K Points

4 years ago

Hi rmurtha0 -

I have passed along your new Country request for "South Sudan" to the appropriate team for review, as soon as I have an update I will let you know here.

Cheers!

3 Messages

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96 Points

@Michelle thanks!

6 Messages

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272 Points

Any update since then? @Michelle 

Employee

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18.2K Messages

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321.2K Points

Hi @rus_paul_adrian -

The new country request is still open and waiting prioritization.  Unfortunately I cannot provide a timeframe on when it will be added, however, once I have a status I will post it here.

Thanks for your patience!

Employee

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3.5K Messages

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36K Points

Hello,

I want to update you on the status of this outstanding issue.  Our team is still reviewing and working on a resolution.  I understand the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience.  As soon as there is an update, our community team will confirm the details here.

3 Messages

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96 Points

Thanks!

2 Messages

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72 Points

2 months ago

Dear IMDb, A quick Google Search would show South Sudan has been a recognised country since 2011 and the newest country in the world. Since 2021, IMDb has been aware that South Sudan isn’t available as a country of origin when listing films. The last response from IMDb was in April 2024 to this thread, saying that "Our team is still reviewing and working on a resolution." This is not a review. This is neglect. The result is that IMDb erase South Sudanese cinema from short films, documentaries, to features because IMDb doesn't list South Sudan as a country of origin. The result is that all South Sudanese productions on IMDb lists countries other than South Sudan, mostly Sudan (separate country) as the country of origin because the option has every country but not South Sudan. I don't know if IMDb team actually understand this. The fact that IMDb has been aware about the issue and have been "reviewing" for four years now and nothing has been done to resolve the issue is absolute unacceptable. I hope IMDb finally resolve this issue as soon as possible because this is a high priority for all the reasons I have mentioned. Including South Sudan as a country of origin would be greatly appreciated by South Sudanese filmmakers, as it is essential to preserving the accuracy and integrity of the nation’s cinema.

Champion

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7.8K Messages

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280.5K Points

Just to add some additional thoughts, I do not believe that adding South Sudan to the list of countries would have been a four-year job for the IMDb programmers. Four *hours* would be an overestimate in my opinion. During the time between when the IMDb was founded in 1990 and when it became a website in 1993, a number of new countries were established (mostly from the former USSR and Yugoslavia). I doubt that the IMDb programmers assumed that there would never be any new countries in the world after that. Surely they must have left a way for new countries to be added to the database if those countries were established in the world later. And even if they failed to do so, how many times has the underlying "back end" software of IMDb been reprogrammed in the ensuing three decades? I know it's at least once. There must have been plenty of opportunities for the programmers to allow new countries to be added to the database. And, in fact, a few countries have been. Timor-Leste, Montenegro, and Kosovo were not independent when IMDb became a website, yet they are all listed as countries by IMDb.