92nd Academy Awards: Nigerian Film 'Lionheart' Loses Nomination For Best International Act Over Dialogue In English

'Lion Heart', the Nigerian film that earned an entry for Best International Feature Film category at the Oscar Awards has been disqualified for having less dialogue in the country's local language(s).

Directed by Genevieve Nnaji, the film made its debut at the cinema on September 7 and has a running time of an hour and 35 minutes but only has dialogue in Igbo (a local language) for 12 minutes.

As stated in the rules that guide the Academy's consideration of a film for the best international act, it is required that a film produced outside of the United States of America, should have well over 40 minutes of its running time in non-English dialogue to be qualified.

Unfortunately, Lionheart did not meet up with this condition and the Academy could not but reconsidered and canceled its nomination for the category.

Meanwhile, the nomination of the film was hugely celebrated in the country, being the first that a film directed and written by a Nigerian artist would be selected for an Oscar award. Be that as it may, Genevieve also reacted to the development in a tweeted message on Monday and with a tag to Ava DuVernay - who directed 'A Wrinkle In Time' - she explained reasons the film has to be less of dialogue in the local language.

"Thank you so much @ava [with a love emoji]. I am the director of Lionheart. This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians," she wrote. "This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country, thereby making us @OneNigeria @the Academy."

The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to be held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on 9 February 2020.