The Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) for the Academy Awards has announced the cancellation of its plan for the country’s participation in the 2023 Oscars saying that no submitted film was eligible.
Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi, the Chairperson of NOSC who disclosed the development to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences( AMPAS), expressed regret that the committee could not find a film suitable for the award.
“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.
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“Nigerian films have undoubtedly improved significantly as filmmakers’ awareness of the requirements has grown over time, and we just might be bringing this award home in succession very soon,” she said.
However, she implored filmmakers to get more acquainted with Oscar-nominated films in the International Feature Film (IFF) category to achieve the needed international recognition and put our films in its acclaimed level of creative discourse.
This is the second year in a row that Nigeria would not be submitting a film for the International Feature Film category of the Oscars, the last submission being ‘The Milkmaid’ in 2020.
In 2019, the Oscars disqualified Nigeria’s official submission ‘Lionheart’ for not meeting the non-English dialogue criteria.
