The Oscars mandate voters watch all nominated movies, set new rules for AI and refugee filmmakers
Entertainment
On Monday, the academy also put forth a handful of new regulations on issues including AI
NEW YORK (AP) — Oscar voters will no longer be able to skip watching some of the nominated films.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Monday announced that members will from now on be required to watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round of Oscar voting. Up until now, Oscar voters had only been encouraged to watch the nominees, and vote in categories they felt qualified in.
But in recent years, what films get watched by academy members has been increasingly seen as a significant factor in what wins. At the same time, the publication of anonymous Oscar ballots has often featured members confessing that they didn’t get around to watching some notable films or not finishing lengthier nominees.
On Monday, the academy also put forth a handful of new regulations on issues including AI, refugee filmmakers and the newly launched casting category.
In the best international film category, the academy will now allow filmmakers with refugee or asylum status to be represented by a country not their own. The rule change keeps in place the broad apparatus of how international nominees are submitted through countries, but it tweaks eligibility.
The regulation now reads: “The submitting country must confirm that creative control of the film was largely in the hands of citizens, residents, or individuals with refugee or asylum status in the submitting country.”
Critics have long called on changes to the nominating process for best international film because it leaves the submission process in the hands of governments, not the academy. That’s left dissident filmmakers working under authoritarian or undemocratic regimes with limited pathways to reaching the Oscars.
Last year, for instance, the Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran before he was to be flogged and imprisoned for eight years in order to release his film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Germany, where Rasoulof settled, submitted it for the Oscars and it was nominated. But other filmmakers, including Rasoulof’s friend and countryman Jafar Panahi, have released films without a mechanism for submission.
