Los Angeles:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is set meet next week to discuss revamping the best picture race and fight the perception that it is racist amid criticism over the lack of inclusion at this year’s Oscars nominations.
The board members will meet on January 26 and there are suggestions that Academy may return to 10 best-picture contenders among other changes, reported Variety.
The lack of diversity in nominations for the 88th Academy Award has led to a call for boycott of Oscars by some actors while some major Hollywood stars have publicly spoken out against it.
Geoerge Clooney, Jada Pinkett Smith, Spike Lee, David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o are some of the celebrities who have slammed the Oscars nominations this year.
There is a strong possibility that the Academy will rethink the membership which was even hinted by its president Cheryl Boone Isaacs in a statement where she called for swift changes within the body.
She had also said that the Academy “is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership” and there will be a “review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity...”
The meeting next week is a regularly-scheduled event in the Academy’s calendar but the diversity row is likely to take the centerstage.
