Nigeria’s first film ever submitted to the Oscars has been disqualified from the race for the Best International Feature Film category.
In an email on Monday, the Academy said the Genevieve Nnaji directed movie, Lion Heart, was disqualified because it violates a rule that entries in the category must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track.”
Lionheart, in which Nnaji also stars, is partially in the Igbo language but it is mostly in English. .
The decision to disqualify it has however sparked outrage, with many saying English is the official language of Nigeria and hence it shouldn’t have been disqualified.