Nigeria Returns to Oscars Race With Damilola Orimogunje’s ‘Dear Ajayi’

Nigeria is back in the Academy Awards race, with Damilola Orimogunje’s Dear Ajayi selected as the country’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Oscars.

The Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) announced the choice after reviewing films submitted during its August call for entries. The selection puts the Nigeria-Germany co-production in contention for consideration by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ahead of the Oscars ceremony scheduled for March 14, 2027, in Los Angeles.

Importantly, the selection is not an Oscar nomination. Dear Ajayi must first pass the Academy’s eligibility process and compete with international submissions from other countries before the shortlist and final nominees are determined. The Academy is scheduled to announce its 15-film international feature shortlist on December 15, with the five nominees to be revealed on January 21, 2027.

Written and directed by Orimogunje, Dear Ajayi is set in southwestern Nigeria during the 1990s and centres on two estranged sisters, Ade and Titi, who are forced to live together while caring for their paralysed mother. Their reunion brings unresolved family tensions back to the surface as they confront questions of faith, responsibility, ambition, grief and reconciliation.

The film features Bimbo Akintola, Tosin Adeyemi and Lanre Hassan, alongside William Benson, Antar Laniyan, Uzoamaka Power, Michelle Dede and Chioma “Chigul” Omeruah. The production is a collaboration between Nigerian companies 2o9ine Films, Depth and Optics Productions and Germany’s Mayana Films.

Dear Ajayi has already gained international festival exposure. It premiered at Giornate degli Autori, the independent programme running alongside the 2026 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Enrico Fulchignoni Prize and the Bisato d’Oro award for its cast and performances, according to Nigerian Television Authority's report on the selection.

The film's international profile could provide useful momentum as it enters the Oscar process. It is also scheduled to screen at Film Africa in London on October 30, giving the production another opportunity to reach international audiences and industry professionals before the Academy's shortlist is announced.

For Orimogunje, the Oscar submission comes after an earlier feature-film success. His debut, For Maria: Ebun Pataki, premiered at Film Africa in London and won the festival's Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature before going on to receive six African Movie Academy Award nominations. He also produced All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White, which won the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The selection also brings Nigeria back into the international feature race after the country did not submit a film for the previous Oscars. In 2025, the NOSC said none of the films under consideration met the required standard of creative and technical intentionality, leaving Nigeria without an entry for the 98th Academy Awards.

Nigeria's Oscar journey in the category has had a complicated history. Lionheart, directed by Genevieve Nnaji, became the country's first submission but was disqualified from the 2020 race because the Academy determined that most of its dialogue was in English. The Milkmaid later became the first Nigerian submission accepted into the international feature category, although it did not make the final shortlist. Mami Wata and Mai Martaba subsequently represented Nigeria in the category.

The international feature rules make the language element particularly relevant. Films generally need more than 50% non-English dialogue, while meeting other eligibility requirements including a qualifying theatrical release. Dear Ajayi uses Yoruba, English and Igbo, with English subtitles, giving it a multilingual identity rooted in its Nigerian setting.

NOSC chairperson Stephanie Linus congratulated the filmmakers and said the committee looked forward to presenting the film to the Academy for consideration. The committee's role now shifts toward supporting the submission as it moves through the Academy's formal process.

For Nigerian cinema, the significance of Dear Ajayi extends beyond whether it ultimately reaches the Oscar stage. The film represents a return to international competition at a time when Nigerian filmmakers are increasingly taking locally rooted stories into global festival circuits. Its journey will now be watched not only as an Oscar campaign, but as another measure of how Nigerian stories, languages and filmmakers can travel from local screens to the world's most prominent film institutions.