No Nigerian film for 2023 Oscars selection as committee cites eligibility issues

The Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) for the Academy Awards announced that it would not be planning to send a delegation to the 2023 Oscars because no submitted film qualified.

The NOSC Chairperson, Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi, who informed the AMPAS of the development, expressed regret that the committee was unable to identify a film deserving of the honor.

“Although the committee received three epic films following its call for submissions in August, it turned out that none of them will advance to the next stage owing to the voting patterns of members,” she said.

Anyaene-Abonyi said, “Nigerian films had, no doubt, improved significantly as the awareness of the requirements has since grown among filmmakers, and potentially soon, we just might be bringing this award home in succession.”

However, she implored filmmakers to “get more acquainted with Oscars-nominated films in the IFF category to achieve the needed international recognition and put our films in its acclaimed level of creative discourse”.

Nigeria hasn’t submitted a movie to the Oscars’ International Feature Film category for the past two years, with The Milkmaid in 2020 serving as the last submission.

You may recall that the committee initially nominated Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart for an Oscar in 2019, but the Academy disqualified it because it did not adhere to the language requirement.