For the second year in a row, the Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) for the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Science has found no Nigerian title worthy of being submitted for the Oscars.
In August, the committee opened the submissions window for Nigerian filmmakers to submit their works for consideration for the International Feature Film Award category of the 2023 Oscars.
However, one month later, the Chairperson of NOSC, Chineze Anyaene-Abonyi, has expressed regret that the committee could not find a film suitable for the award.
In a statement gleaned from The PUNCH, Anyaene-Abonyi said, “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.”
In a session that lasted two hours on September 3, 2023, the NOSC recorded a voting chart of ‘8:5:1:1’ from its 15 members- with ‘no film is eligible’ taking the lead.
In 2021, the committee also returned a ‘no film is eligible’ vote and no Nigerian title was submitted for the Oscars. The last Nigerian submission for the Oscars was Desmond Ovbiagele’s The Milkmaid, which was submitted in 2020.
