What Will It Take to Fix Hollywood’s Race Problem?
Despite what many saw as Oscar-worthy performances by the likes of Michael B. Jordan and Idris Elba, Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony will feature an all-white lineup of acting nominees for the second year in a row.
By Erin Crews
hen the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its 2016 Oscar nominees last month, director Spike Lee took to Instagram to ask, “How is it possible for the second consecutive year all 20 contenders in the acting category are white?” He and his wife wouldn’t be attending the ceremony, he said.Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, whose husband Will Smith was not nominated for his work in “Concussion,” posted a Facebook video in which she said, “The Academy has the right to acknowledge whomever they choose, to invite whomever they choose, and now I think that it’s our responsibility now to make the change.” She wouldn’t be there, either.
The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, first used last year when David Oyelowo’s performance in “Selma” was conspicuously absent from the list of acting nominations, was revived with new force.
How have we arrived at this point, again, after years of debate about diversity in Hollywood and accusations that the Academy overlooks the work of actors and filmmakers of color?
The Future of Film in the Hollywood of the South
ince Georgia began offering up to 30 percent tax credits to large in-state film productions in 2008, Atlanta has become the capital of movie-making in the South. More than 140 films and TV shows have been made here since then, bringing 79,000 jobs and $4 billion in wages to the state, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Atlanta is now third in the country for film production, behind Los Angeles and New York, and no. 5 in the world.
Georgia State is playing a major role in the movie boom, with faculty and alumni of the film and video program heavily involved in behind-the-scenes work and in front of the camera. Here are just a few of the Panthers who are shaping the Atlanta film industry.
Chasing Dreams of Filmmaking with a Stop in Cannes
ast year, Antonio Garcia shot "Vue de Moi," a short satirical film styled after early French cinema, and submitted it to Campus MovieFest. The Georgia State undergraduate was thrilled when it won for best actor and a Jury Award.
Then he found out it had been selected to be screened at Cannes Film Festival, and he knew he had to go.
The most useful thing he learned in France?
"Operating on two-to-four hours of sleep a night is pretty easy when it means doing something you love."