At the Oscars, new rules for Net­flix and inter­na­tion­al films

Much like Alban­ian singing sen­sa­tion Dua Lipa, the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences has new rules; they count ​’em.

The most notable among them regards require­ments for eli­gi­bil­i­ty, a stick­ing point for stream­ing plat­forms resent­ful of the oblig­a­tion to screen for at least sev­en days in a brick-and-mor­tar Los Ange­les the­ater in order to qual­i­fy for con­sid­er­a­tion. Ear­li­er this year, tra­di­tion­al­ist Steven Spiel­berg and new kids on the block Net­flix were made into fig­ure­heads on oppos­ing sides of this great crisis.

Now that the Acad­e­my has decid­ed to uphold that orig­i­nal stance, how­ev­er, Spiel­berg wants to clear the air. Speak­ing to the New York Times, he took a both-sides approach:

“I want peo­ple to find their enter­tain­ment in any form or fash­ion that suits them. Big screen, small screen – what real­ly mat­ters to me is a great sto­ry and every­one should have access to great sto­ries… How­ev­er, I feel peo­ple need to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to leave the safe and famil­iar of their lives and go to a place where they can sit in the com­pa­ny of oth­ers and have a shared expe­ri­ence – cry togeth­er, laugh togeth­er, be afraid togeth­er – so that when it’s over they might feel a lit­tle less like strangers.”

The oth­er major announce­ment con­cerns the Best For­eign Lan­guage Film cat­e­go­ry, which will hence­forth be renamed Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film. Though the switch-up will not alter the guide­lines for sub­mis­sion in any way, it reflects a grow­ing con­scious­ness from a matur­ing Acad­e­my body.

Lar­ry Karaszews­ki and Diane Wey­er­mann, co-chairs of the Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film Com­mit­tee, released a state­ment address­ing the passé eth­no­cen­trism of the for­mer title:

“We have not­ed that the ref­er­ence to ​‘For­eign’ is out­dat­ed with­in the glob­al film­mak­ing com­mu­ni­ty. We believe that Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film bet­ter rep­re­sents this cat­e­go­ry, and pro­motes a pos­i­tive and inclu­sive view of film­mak­ing, and the art of film as a uni­ver­sal experience.”

In oth­er news, the Make­up & Hair­styling cat­e­go­ry will expand from three nom­i­nees to five, and the archa­ic rule requir­ing eight ani­mat­ed fea­ture films be released in a cal­en­dar year to ​“acti­vate” the cat­e­go­ry has been done away with.

Aside from that, it’s busi­ness as usu­al – which is to say, a hay­wire cer­e­mo­ny in con­stant flux that may or may not dis­pose of the basic host­ing con­cept when it rolls around next year. Like good ol’ Dua Lipa, we can see the pat­tern, but we can nev­er real­ly learn.

The Acad­e­my Awards will be held on 9 Feb­ru­ary, 2020.