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The Academy concluded that the international feature film executive committee’s deliberations on the three titles to be added to the preliminary committee’s seven selections before announcing the shortlist could not be conducted safely online.
Due to concerns about their ability to protect the security of the process by which the best international Oscar list is determined, given the pandemic forcing deliberations to be held online, the Academy of Arts and Sciences Board of Governors cinema decided to change this process for this year only.
Over the past years, the International Feature Film Screening Committee – a group of volunteers from all branches of the Academy who screen submitted films from around the world at the Academy’s headquarters in Beverly Hills or at its Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood – picked seven of the 10 films that ultimately made it to the shortlist. These selections are then shared in confidence by accounting firm PwC with the International Feature Film Executive Committee, which in turn adds three more titles to the seven, producing a shortlist of 10. The public is never informed of the seven committee choices and which are “back-ups”, so as not to influence the subsequent selection of the five nominees and the eventual winner.
This year, however, the process will be different. The Academy decided several months ago to invite all members of its Academy – not just those based in the Los Angeles area near Academy screening sites – to be weighed in in the first phase of the selection process if they so choose, as the pandemic has forced all screenings to take place via the Academy’s online streaming service.
More recently, The Hollywood Reporter learned, the Academy concluded that holding the executive committee’s online deliberations through Zoom or a similar platform would expose them to leaks or hacks, and decided not to take that risk.
Therefore, this year’s shortlist will only be determined by the preliminary committee. Additionally, in a decision unrelated to the pandemic, the shortlist will drop from 10 to 15.
This latest decision may further reflect the tension felt by some members of the preliminary committee – and shared with The Hollywood Reporter – having to sift through a record 93 submissions in less than a month.
It was not until the beginning of January that the preliminary committee even received its “assignments”. (Committee members are divided into viewing groups and asked to make sure they have watched a specific group of films submitted, this year numbering 12, after which they can vote to shortlist them or others.)
The counterargument is that they can watch these movies anytime before the shortlist vote closes on February 5 (it opens February 1), as opposed to the normal process of having to go to the headquarters of the. Academy at a certain time, at a certain time over a period of about two months, to see the films that have been awarded to them or others.
The list of best international films at the Oscars, and all other shortlists, will be released to the public on February 9.
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