The Academy Awards—On Diversity & Inclusion — Filmatique
The Academy Awards—On Diversity & Inclusion
Behind the Scenes of Nomadland
Following recent criticisms of #OscarsSoWhite and #BaftasSoWhite, both the US and British Academy Awards have made significant efforts to reconfigure their membership criteria. As a result, this year's Academy Awards featured a historic level of women, people of color and younger filmmakers among the nominees—70 women were nominated in 23 categories, with nearly half the nominees in acting categories being performers of color (9 out of 20).
Looking at this year's winners, the changes seem to have borne fruit. Chloé Zhao, whose first feature film Songs My Brothers Taught Me is available to rent via our platform, became the first woman of color to win best director for Nomadland, which also took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) and Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) both won for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom saw Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson become the first Black women to win the award for makeup and hairstyling. The ceremony proved what happens when diversity and inclusion are more than symbolic goals, but rather achieved through a shared commitment to renewed standards. This year's Oscars also set the tone for parallel awards such as the Golden Globes, which recently unveiled reforms aimed at identifying and addressing the HFPA diversity crisis—making 2021 a significant roadmap year towards the future of inclusion.
While the Academy Awards remain a crucial litmus test for evaluating the industry's position within the current debate on inclusivity, Filmatique continues to advance the discourse by presenting a more diverse and expansive vision of international cinema. Our April series Foreign Language Oscar Submissions IVcelebrates powerful films from underrepresented nations which have rarely, if ever, been nominated for the award. Leila Bouzid's debut feature film As I Open My Eyes(Tunisia), internationally acclaimed political drama Clash(Egypt), and Petra Volpe's The Divine Order (Switerzland) are all currently playing in our streaming library. The series also includes a special screening of Tran Anh Hung The Scent of Green Papaya, the only Vietnamese film ever to be nominated in this category—a sensual and immersive testament to the immense talent of exemplary directors that remain excluded from the spotlight.
