The Oscars will keep honoring human-driven work as AI spreads through filmmaking, Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor tells Variety in Tokyo, while the Academy’s leadership expects to keep refining the international feature rules in the first year of a new route that lets festivals qualify films.
Howell Taylor, Academy CEO Bill Kramer, chief membership, impact and industry officer Meredith Shea and Amy Homma, director and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and Academy Collection, are in Japan for the Tokyo International Film Festival to meet members and filmmakers.
Howell Taylor says AI has been part of post-production workflows for a decade and is already built into visual effects, and that the Academy discusses it regularly in relation to eligibility. “What will always remain true for the Academy is that we award human excellence, human-driven workflow,” she says. “And so, even though there’s a lot of exciting advances that can enhance the audience’s experience through technology, at the center of it will always be humans driving that workflow.” She also flags “very real concerns around copyright and around transparency and disclosure” as factors in the Academy’s thinking.
Under rules introduced for the 99th Oscars, a non-English-language film can now qualify for international feature without being its country’s official submission by winning the top prize at one of six festivals: the Golden Bear at Berlin, the Busan Award for best film, the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, the Platform Award at Toronto and the Golden Lion at Venice.
Asked whether eligibility could extend beyond the top prize at qualifying festivals, given that Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur” nearly missed out after winning the Grand Prix rather than the Palme d’Or at Cannes, before France selected it as its submission, Shea says: “Each year, the International Feature Executive Committee will review the rules to ensure that they match industry standards. We were so proud this year to have the six festivals and the six highest honors from major international film festivals, and the committee will look at the rules to see how they need to make improvements and different edits just to ensure that it represents global filmmakers.”
Shea notes that festival qualification is not new for the Academy. The three shorts categories – animated, documentary and live action – already use qualifying festivals, as does documentary feature. The initial six festivals for international feature were picked according to their submission numbers and their reach around the world.
“I think it’s important to think about a couple of changes that have been made over the last couple of years. One was our rule to allow refugee filmmakers who are no longer in their home country to be represented by a country where they’re seeking asylum. And now we’ve added these six festival awards,” says Kramer. “All of this is designed to expand the aperture of how we’re inviting in non-U.S. films, non-English-language films, to be considered for the International Feature Film Award. So, we are always looking at ways to invite more filmmakers into that mix. So, this is part of that, and I think you will see that continue.”
Howell Taylor says the refugee rule and the festival route were both designed in part to help filmmakers working in exile, whose governments would be unlikely to put their films forward, so that “there are now multiple paths to qualify for an international award rather than just being selected by a home country.”
Shea says international feature is one category, and that films can also be submitted for documentary feature, animated feature and Best Picture. “I think it’s important for global filmmakers to know that those categories and Best Picture are open to all filmmakers,” she says. Howell Taylor adds that last year’s Oscars had international representation in every category.
The Tokyo visit forms part of a wider push. “This is all part of our globalization efforts,” Kramer says. “The Academy, just like the film industry, is becoming more global in scope and scale. From our museum exhibitions and programs to our membership – we’re now 25% non-U.S. membership – you’re seeing it in our nominations and awards. So, we are out in the world meeting with our members and filmmakers.”
The Academy has been to Rio, Marrakesh and Morelia, with team members also attending Busan. Kramer says he is “thrilled to be at the Tokyo International Film Festival,” adding: “We’re having an incredible time. Very impressive.”
For Shea, festival partners such as Tokyo give the Academy a foothold in each region. “It’s so important for us as an organization to go where our members are,” she says. “There’s a built-in film audience, so that includes members, individuals that are looking to become Academy members, and emerging filmmakers that want to engage with our global talent development programs.”
Shea says the Academy uses the international feature category to find new members, since the films arriving from around the world bring filmmakers who already clear a bar of excellence in their own countries. Using the category to identify new members across all disciplines “has been wildly successful for us, and that’s why you’ve seen our invitees over the last five years be increasingly global,” she says.
Smaller film industries in South and Southeast Asia face a separate hurdle: the cost of awards campaigns. “Talent is universal, but accessibility is not always the same for everybody,” says Howell Taylor. “Our role as an Academy is to travel to where the filmmaking communities are, meet filmmakers, have conversations about barriers to entry. … As an Academy, we’re not in charge of awards spending, but we continue to have deep conversations with filmmakers around the world, and especially in the smaller regions, on what is it that would help them with their own barriers to entry and how can we support.”
Kramer cites the Academy Screening Room, the organization’s streaming service for members, where every film is presented on equal terms. Voters must also agree, on an honor system, to watch every film in a category before casting a ballot, while the Academy spotlights emerging, diverse and international filmmakers on its social channels and in the museum. “So, we work very hard to level that playing field because there are different ways of campaigning, and ultimately we want our members to vote for excellence. That’s what’s key,” he says.
Members, Kramer adds, “are curious. They love movies, so they will seek out those films. We just have to make them aware of them, and that’s our job.”
Planning has already begun for the 2029 ceremony, the first under the Academy’s deal with YouTube. “The goal of moving the show to YouTube was to reach a larger global audience,” Kramer says. “YouTube has the potential of reaching 2.5 billion people around the world. They will see the same Oscars show at the same time and have the option of watching it in over 30 languages. That was very important to us as we think about our global expansion.”
Kramer says the show’s non-U.S. audience is already roughly equal to its U.S. audience. “There’s a great demand for the Oscars outside of the U.S., and YouTube will help us reach a much larger international audience. And it allows us to engage with our fans more directly. So, we have much more control over the fan engagement and the audience engagement,” he says.
On whether the ceremony’s start time could shift to suit viewers in other regions, he says: “We’re looking at a lot of things right now, to be determined.”
Asked about a more permanent presence in Asia, Kramer says: “I think you will see a continuation of our travel around the world to meet our members and filmmakers where they live and work. We do have many more options now to engage with our members and the filmmaking public.”
He notes that a London office coordinates many of the Academy’s non-U.S. initiatives, that the museum’s screening series now travels to New York and London, and that the Academy has more than 200 partnerships with writing labs, universities and film schools worldwide through its talent development programs and the museum. “You’ll only see an expansion of that,” he says.
Howell Taylor says the Academy is “always evolving” and that “there’s a lot of stuff that’s on the table.” Shea adds that the Student Academy Awards, the Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting and the Gold Fellowship for Women, run in partnership with Chanel, have seen an increase in international winners.
At the Academy Museum, which opened in 2021 and runs roughly 600 repertory screenings a year alongside exhibitions across four floors, Homma says the brief extends well beyond North American film history. “We look forward to continuing to build on the momentum and success we’ve already seen in featuring more Asian and Asian American film histories and stories,” she says.
On film preservation, a pressing issue across Asia, Homma says the work of archives and collecting institutions has never been more critical if more films are not to be lost or left unrestored. The museum’s annual Present Past series screens restoration premieres from the Academy and the wider archival community. “I think it’s imperative that we all link arms as an archival community right now, to not only do this work of preservation, but to also build the audience for it, and to build the understanding of what will happen if we don’t take these efforts,” Homma says.
With the Academy’s centennial approaching, Howell Taylor says reaching 100 years is a chance to reflect on how the film industry has changed in the U.S. and abroad, with the Academy creating content over the next 18 months in the run-up.
“You will continue to see growth in our international membership. You will continue to see international programming in our museum. You will continue to see our Academy Collection growing international representation within the collection,” says Kramer. “So, we’re moving in a very exciting global direction, and that will continue.”
