Nigeria’s ‘Dear Ajayi’ gets Oscar nod, but shortlist is biggest test

Nigeria has chosen a family drama about two estranged sisters as its entry for the 99th Academy Awards. The harder question is whether the film can make it past the submission stage, something only one Nigerian entry has managed in recent years.

The Nigerian Official Selection Committee picked Damilola Orimogunje’s Dear Ajayi as the country’s submission in the Best International Feature Film category. The choice returns Nigeria to the race after it sent no film for the previous edition.

Selection is only the first step. The film must meet the Academy’s eligibility rules before it can compete for one of 15 shortlist places. The Academy then whittles those 15 films down to five nominees.

The film

Orimogunje wrote and directed Dear Ajayi, a Nigeria-Germany co-production. It follows two estranged sisters who are forced back together to care for their paralysed mother. The story is set in southwestern Nigeria in the 1990s, and the cast includes Bimbo Akintola, Tosin Adeyemi and Lanre Hassan.

The film opened in select Nigerian cinemas on September 18. A wider nationwide release is scheduled for November 13 through FilmOne. The committee chose it after a submission window that ran from August 1 to August 31.

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The rules

The Academy requires International Feature entries to run longer than 40 minutes, be produced outside the United States and have more than 50 percent of their dialogue in a language other than English. They must also meet theatrical-release requirements.

Those rules have shaped Nigeria’s Oscar history. In 2019, Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart became the country’s first submission, only to be disqualified from the category because most of its dialogue was in English.

The following year, the committee chose Desmond Ovbiagele’s The Milkmaid for the 2021 Oscars. The Hausa-language film became the first Nigerian submission accepted as eligible, but it did not reach the 15-film shortlist.

A patchy record

Nigeria’s participation since has been uneven. The country sent no film for the 2022 Oscars after the committee said the entries it received did not meet the Academy’s eligibility requirements.

For the 2023 Oscars, the committee again selected nothing, even though three productions reached its final selection round: Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman, Aníkúlápó and Agesinkole (King of Thieves). It held to that decision despite an extension from the Academy meant to let Nigeria resolve the matter and submit a film.

Nigeria came back in 2023 with C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata, the country’s submission for the 2024 Academy Awards. The film cleared the eligibility stage but missed the shortlist. Prince Daniel’s Mai Martaba followed as the submission for the 2025 Oscars. Nigeria then had no entry for the 2026 edition.

The record points to two separate problems: finding films that satisfy the Academy’s rules, and keeping up a campaign once a film is chosen. Only The Milkmaid and Mami Wata cleared eligibility, and neither made the shortlist.

What could help

The shortlist matters because it narrows the field to the films still in serious contention for the final five nominations. For Nigeria, getting there would mean more than having an official submission. It would put Dear Ajayi in a stronger position in the international awards conversation.

The film’s German co-production could help, giving it an international dimension as it enters the Academy process. Its setting, story and largely Nigerian cast also fit the industry’s continuing push to put local cinema in front of a global awards audience.

Those advantages don’t settle the outcome. After the national selection, Dear Ajayi joins an international field of films from other countries competing for the same 15 places, and the Academy’s decision doesn’t rest on Nigeria’s choice.

The Calendar

The Academy is scheduled to announce the 15-film shortlist on December 15, 2026. Nominations are expected on January 21, 2027, and the 99th Academy Awards are set for March 14, 2027.