These are not the best of times for veteran actress and movie director, Genevieve Nnaji as her famous movie, LionHeart has been disqualified from Oscar.
The actress took to her Twitter page on Tuesday, November 5th, 2019 to react to the disqualification of the movie by the Academy from Oscar. She wrote;
“I am the director of Lionheart. This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country; thereby making us #OneNigeria. The Academy thank you so much.”
“It’s no different to how French connects communities in former French colonies. We did not choose who colonized us. As ever, this film and many like it, is proudly Nigerian.”
1/1 1/2 Thank you so much @ava❤️.
I am the director of Lionheart. This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country; thereby making us #OneNigeria. @TheAcademy https://t.co/LMfWDDNV3e— Genevieve Nnaji MFR (@GenevieveNnaji1) November 4, 2019
2/2 It’s no different to how French connects communities in former French colonies. We did not choose who colonized us. As ever, this film and many like it, is proudly Nigerian. @TheAcademy https://t.co/LMfWDDNV3e
— Genevieve Nnaji MFR (@GenevieveNnaji1) November 4, 2019
For those who don’t know, LionHeart was disqualified because the movie is partially in Igbo language and mostly in English which violates the Academy rule that entries in the category must have a predominantly non-English dialogue track.
