Genevieve’s Lionheart, Nigeria’s submission for the Oscars, has been disqualified by the Oscars Board for having “too much English in it,”.
According to The Wrap, Nigeria’s Lionheart has been disqualified from the 92nd Academy Awards race. The film, directed by and starring Genevieve Nnaji, was vying for a spot in the Best International Feature Film category. Nnaji portrays Adaeze Obiagu, who “tries to keep her father’s struggling company afloat in a male-dominated environment.”
The disqualification decision was announced to category voters in an email on Monday. Lionheart is Nigeria’s first film to ever be submitted to the Oscars.
The Wrap reports:
Lionheart, in which Nnaji also stars, is partially in the Igbo language of Nigeria. But it is mostly in English, which violates an Academy rule that entries in the category must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track.”
The film had not been vetted by the Academy’s International Feature Film Award Executive Committee in advance of the Oct. 7 announcement of qualifying films but was recently viewed and determined not to qualify in a category that until this year was known as Best Foreign Language Film.
Academy member Ava DuVernay called out the blatant disregard on Twitter Monday asking, “Are you barring this country from ever competing for an Oscar in its official language? “This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country; thereby making us #OneNigeria,” Nnaji responded on Twitter, thanking DuVernay for bringing attention to the matter.
1/1 1/2 Thank you so much @ava❤️.
— Genevieve Nnaji MFR (@GenevieveNnaji1) November 4, 2019
I am the director of Lionheart. This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country; thereby making us #OneNigeria. @TheAcademy https://t.co/LMfWDDNV3e
What They Are Saying On Twitter
- “Lionheart” has been disqualified from the Oscars because it’s mostly in English which violates their Best International Feature Film rule. Fine, we move but if you come and say the movie is wack & doesn’t stand a chance at the Oscars, make I clear you now, your brain don pafuka.
- Bob Marley never won a Grammy, neither did ABBA. One thing you need to understand about the Grammys and the Oscars – is that they are local awards, primarily for American artistes. (The first Grammy for Reggae music was awarded in 1985).
- If only Lionheart had been in Igbo with english subtitles a Nollywood movie would have been on its way to winning the best int. film at the Oscars now. It really is so sad and unfair. After all English really is our lingua franca in Nigeria even though we hate to admit it..
- Nollywood, Africa’s biggest movie industry, is Englishlanguage dominated. There’s no point sweating this out; Forget the Oscars and focus on African movie industry awards. I said same thing about Coachella. We don’t need the Americans.
- So Oscar disqualified Genevieve’s LionHeart because it was filmed in English Language? Oya now let us submit ‘Alani Pamolekun’ that one has too much Yoruba language spoken in it.
- Lionheart has been disqualified from the Oscar. Reason: A Nigerian movie should not have so much English. Mind you, we were colonized by this same English people, English is our official language. This right here is BS! And it’s discriminatory.
- If the English Language is the Main reason Lionheart was disqualified from the Oscar, then Nigeria’s chances of winning an Oscar is zero.
