The Academy’s Best International Feature Film committee board has decided to disqualify the first-ever Nigerian entry, Genevieve Njaji’s “Lionheart,” because it is mostly in the English language. And yet, the official language in Nigeria is, who da thunk it, English.
I thought they changed the name Foreign Language Movie to Best International Movie to stop shit like this
But it is mostly in English, which violates an Academy rule that entries in the category must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track.”
I thought wrong. It still includes the rule that the film must have a predominately non-English dialogue track. It's unfortunate. It does seem as though the best foreign film Oscar has and always will be the award for "best non-english film”
Of course, after the news was announced, none other than Ava DuVernay led a Twitter protest against the ruling: “Are you banning this country from ever competing for an Oscar in its official language?”
“Colonialism really is a bitch,” added Franklin Leonard, founder of the Black List.
Regardless, Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” is going to win anyway. Right?