Diversity is making its way into the mecca of cinema little by little based on talent, effort and struggle. Also in the awards.
Mecca cinema and its industry has historically been a place dominated by white men. But, little by little, based on effort, talent, struggle and also thanks to denunciation and social mobilization, it is gradually opening up to diversity. There is still a long way to go, but today there are more references than yesterday with which to identify and the hope that they will be more and more.
Guild of America (DGA) director nominations included two women among the nominees for Outstanding Achievement as a Director and three color candidates among the new candidate directors.
The list of nominations for the most famous film awards has recently been announced, which will be handed out two weeks after the DGAs. “The Oscars nominate the most diverse cast in history, including the first Asian-American actor,” Variety headlined.
Among the nominees to take the statuette for best direction for the Oscars, as well as the DGA, are two women, Emerald Fennell, for “A Promising Young Women,” and Chloé Zhao, for “Nomadland.”
Zhao, a Chinese-American, won the Golden Globe for Best Direction recently and became the first Asian woman to take home the award.
The film tells the story of a woman who, after losing everything in the crisis, decides to embark on a journey and live like a modern nomad.
“For me, Nomadland is a pilgrimage through pain and healing,” he told the recipient of the award which, he noted, was for all those “who have gone through this difficult and beautiful journey at some point in their lives”. Zhao is also 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 Non-English Speaking Film .
“‘Minari’ is a family. It’s a family trying to learn to speak a language of their own. It’s deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It’s a language of heart,” he said after receiving the saved. The list 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 among the nominees.
Best Supporting Actress, black actresses Viola Davis for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Andra Day for “The United States vs. Billy Holiday” share a nomination with white Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a woman “; Frances McDormand, for “Nomadland” and Carey Mullingan, for “A promising Young woman.” Best Supporting Actress, Yuh-Jung Young is the first Korean performer nominated in this category.
In the male categories, however, the trend was reversed. Among the nominees for Best Leading Actor are Riz Ahmed, a Briton 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,” close out the list that for the first time in history isn’t mostly white.
A reality that also moves to the nominations for best supporting actor. In this category compete Leslie Odom Jr 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” close the cast.
“It’s another opportunity to open your mouth and tell a really fundamental truth about Hollywood, this business, and really the United States,” Davis told Variety.
“If returning for the fourth time to the Oscars makes me the most nominated black actress in history, this is a testament to the great lack of material there has been for artists of color,” she added.