By Jennifer Y Omiloli
The Academy (Oscar) disqualified Nigeria’s “Lionheart” directed by Genevieve Nnaji from the Oscar competition in the category of Best International Feature Film, reducing the number of films eligible for the award to 92 from a total of 93 entries.
The movie, the first entry of Nigeria in the category of Best International Feature Film, is primarily in English, making it ineligible to participate.
“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 Academy announced the disqualification of “Lionheart” to voters in the category in an email on Monday.
