Oscar, the Academy promises new standards for inclusive awards

(ANSA) - NEW YORK, JUNE 12 - Hollywood becomes more inclusive against the backdrop of protests over the killing of African-American George Floyd by the Minneapolis white police.
   The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a new phase of its efforts for equality, combining the nomination for the 2021 Oscars with new standards of representation and inclusion that will be determined by a special task force by July 2020. The announcement follows a vote via Zoom of the Academy's board of directors, already scheduled for Tuesday but which had been postponed to not coincide with Floyd's funeral.
   The decision is part of the steps that Hollywood had pledged to open five years ago following the #OscarSoWite controversy about the failure to award "Selma", the film by African-American AvaDuVernay on the marches for the right to vote of blacks led by Martin Luther King, and more generally on the scarce presence of films interpreted, directed and produced by minorities in the roster of awards.
    Also to ensure wider access to the most coveted statuette, that of the best film, the Academy will accept ten nominations from the next edition of the Oscar, as was the norm at the beginning of the history of the awards, and not as in the last decade, "from five to ten". The initiative, christened "AcademyAperture 2025", also introduces limits to the mandate of the members of the board: so far three years renewable indefinitely with one year between three years and the next and from now on a maximum of 12 years in the arc of life. A process that should lead to a change more in step with the times. (HANDLE).