Little by little, diversity is invading the cinema mecca based on talent, effort and struggle. Also in the awards.
The mecca of cinema and its industry has traditionally been a place dominated by white men. But little by little, based on effort, talent, struggle and also thanks to the indictment and social mobilization, little by little it opens up to diversity. There is still a long way to go, but today there are more references to identify with than yesterday and the hope that there will be more and more.
Nominations from the Director Guild of America (DGA) included two women among the nominees for Outstanding Achievement as Director and three colored candidates among the nominees for Novice Director.
The list of nominations for the most famous film awards, which will be awarded two weeks after the DGAs, has recently been released. “The Oscars nominate the most diverse list of actors in history, including the first Asian-American actor,” headlines Variety.
Among the nominees to win Best Director Picture for the Oscars, such as the DGAs, are two women, Emerald Fennell, for “A Promising Young Women,” and Chloé Zhao, for “Nomadland.”
Zhao, a Chinese American, recently won the Golden Globe for Best Director and became the first Asian woman to win the award.
The film tells the story of a woman who, after losing everything in the crisis, decides to travel and live as a modern nomad.
“To me, Nomadland is a pilgrimage through pain and healing,” he said upon receiving the award that, he noted, was for all those “who have been through this difficult and beautiful journey at some point in their lives.” Zhao has also been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Picture.
9 PEOPLE OF COLOR, BETWEEN ACTRESSES AND ACTORS, NOMINATED.
Fennell and Zhao share a nomination with Lee Isaac Chung, the American director whose latest work “Minari”, inspired by his childhood memories, won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
“” Minari “is about a family. It’s a family trying to learn its own language. It’s deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It’s a language of the heart,” he said after receiving The award is completed by David Fincher for “Mank” and Thomas Vinterberg, Danish director, for “Druk”.
In this edition, nine actors and actresses of color have been nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in different categories. In the female categories, white actresses remain the majority of the nominees.
For Best Lead Actress, Black Actresses Viola Davis for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Andra Day for “The United States vs. Billy Holiday,” they share candidacy with White, Vanessa Kirby, for Pieces of a woman, Frances McDormand, for “Nomadland” and Carey Mullingan, for “A Promising Young Woman.” For Best Supporting Actress, Yuh-Jung Young is the first Korean artist to be nominated in this category.
However, the trend was reversed for men. Among the nominees for Best Leading Actor are Riz Ahmed, Brit of Pakistani descent, for “Sound of Metal”; Steven Yeun, the first Asian American to be nominated for “Minari”; and Chadwick Boseman, an African American actor who died in 2020, for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Anthony Hopkins, for “The Father,” and Gary Oldman, “for Mank,” round out the list that isn’t overwhelmingly white for the first time in history.
A reality that also carries over to the nominations for Best Supporting Actor. Leslie Odom Jr competes in this category for “One night in Miami”; Lakeith Standfield and Daniel Kaluuya, for “Judas and the Black Messiah”; Sacha Baron Cohen for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and Paul Raci, for “Sound of Metal” conclude the cast.
“It’s another chance to open my mouth and tell some really foundational truth about Hollywood, this business and, really, America,” Davis told Variety.
“Going back to the Oscars for the fourth time being the most nominated black actress in history is a testament to the great lack of material out there for color artists,” he added.