Oscar: origin, who votes, winners, nominations

O oscar (in English, The Academy Awards or The Oscars) is the most famous movie award in the world. Created in 1927, it had its first ceremony in 1929, in the city of Los Angeles. This is the oldest cinema award that is in force and its function is to reward the best cinematographic productions.

Currently, it is an extremely recognized event and the most important of all the world cinema. It is broadcast to different countries and watched by millions of people around the world. In 2019, the Oscar audience in the United States had almost 30 million viewers |1|.

readalso: Nobel — history and trivia about one of the most famous awards in the world

Who created the Oscar award?

The Oscar was officially created in 1927 and had its first ceremony held in Los Angeles in 1929.[1]

In the 1920s, American cinema was booming. During this period, several film personalities got together and created the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – Ampas), in 1927. The idea of ​​creating this institution was given by Louis B. Mayer, one of the heads of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (US film production and distribution company and television programs), to look after the image of Hollywood film studios and solve problems labor.

The members who formed Ampas at the time decided that it was necessary to create an event that would reward the best film productions of each year and, thus, the Oscar was born. The first Oscar ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, in a hotel located in Los Angeles. It was attended by 270 people, who paid U$5 to be able to attend the ceremony that awarded the best productions of 1927 and 1928.

readalso: Crisis of 1929 — the event that marked the world and took place in the year of the 1st Oscar ceremony

Who votes for the Oscar?

The films selected to compete and the choice of Oscar winners are determined by the membersgivesgym, that is, the members of Ampas. At the first Oscar ceremony, the choices were made by the 26 members of the Academy. Currently, it is believed that the number of members who have the right to vote is around 8500 people|2|.

It is worth saying that only two Oscar categories are open to vote by all its members.: Best Film and Best Foreign Film. In the other categories that need technical knowledge for evaluation, only those who are able to do so vote. Thus, in the category of Best Documentary, for example, only 486 people have the right to vote.

The Academy, until a few years ago, received strong criticism for the lack of diversity, both among the members who formed it and among the Oscar nominees. As of 2012, statistics indicated that 94% of Academy members were white, that is, white, and 77% of them were male. In addition, more than 50% of them were over 60 years old|3|.

The recent invitations made to new members of the Academy have been marked by diversity, since, in the Admission of New Members In 2017, 39% of new members were women and 30% were black (called, in English, “people of color”)|4|. There are also criticisms about the small number of blacks nominated and chosen as Oscar winners.

Oscar 2021

The 2021 ceremony is scheduled to take place on the day April 25, 2021 and will be held simultaneously at the Dolby Theater, a traditional venue that has hosted Oscar ceremonies since 2002, and at Union Station, a train station in Los Angeles. The choice of this second place is part of the safety protocol that the Academy adopted due to the new pandemic coronavirus.

THE The 2021 ceremony was profoundly altered due to the limitations brought by the pandemic. The first big change that took place was the postponement of the ceremony to April 2021. This was only the fourth time in Academy history that the Oscar ceremony has been postponed. The other postponed editions were the 1938, 1968 and 1981 editions.

The 2021 ceremony will feature the exclusive presence of the nominees, presenters and their companions. Furthermore, all other events that are held and are directly related to the Oscars were canceled by the Academy. All these actions are preventive measures to reduce the risk of contagion for those involved in the ceremony.

In addition, the fact that the pandemic has closed movie theaters around the world has contributed to this edition was marked by films that were only seen on platforms of streaming. The Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories were merged into the Best Sound category. Finally, the Oscar 2021 nominees in the top three categories were as follows.

• Betterfilm:
  • My father
  • Judas and the Black Messiah
  • Mank
  • Minari
  • The sound of silence
  • beautiful revenge
  • Chicago's 7
  • Nomadland
• BetterActor:
  • Anthony Hopkins – My father
  • Chadwick Boseman - The Supreme Voice of the Blues
  • Gary Oldman - Mank
  • Riz Ahmed - The sound of silence
  • Steven Yeun - Minari
• BetterActress:
  • Andra Day - The United States vs. Billie Holiday
  • Carey Mulligan - beautiful revenge
  • Frances McDormand – Nomadland
  • Vanessa Kirby - Pieces of a Woman
  • Viola Davis - The Supreme Voice of the Blues

Accessalso: June 19 – Brazilian Cinema Day

Brazilian Oscar nominations

Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro was nominated for Best Actress for the film “Central do Brasil” at the 1999 Oscar.[2]

Throughout the history of the Oscar ceremony, some Brazilian productions were nominated for an award. The last Brazilian nomination was the documentary known as Democracy in Vertigo, which competed for Best Documentary in 2020. Brazilian or even Brazilian productions (as) have already been nominated. Here are some highlights.

• The Promise Payer (1963), the gang (1996), What is this fellow? (1998) and Central do Brasil (1999) are Brazilian productions that were nominated for Best Foreign Film.
• God's city (2004) and Spider-Woman's Kiss (1986) are the Brazilian productions with the most nominations in an Oscar edition: four nominations each.
• Fernanda Montenegro competed for the 1999 Oscar in the category of Best Actress for her performance in Central do Brasil. The winner on this occasion turned out to be Gwyneth Paltrow, for her performance in Shakespeare in Love.

In addition, our country has already had nominations in categories like Best Director, Best Animated Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Photography, Best Documentary, Best Original Song and Best Short Film by Animation.

winners

The 2019 Oscar awarded actors such as Rami Malek and Olivia Colman in the categories of Best Actor and Best Actress. Green Book won Best Picture.[3]

Over the past five years, the winners in the top three categories (Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress) have been as follows:

• Best movie:

2016	spotlight
2017	moonlight
2018	The Shape of Water
2019	Green Book
2020	Parasite (Parasite)

• best actor:

2016	Leonardo DiCaprio	The Revenant
2017	Casey Affleck	Manchester by the Sea (Manchester by the Sea)
2018	Gary Oldman	Darkest Hour
2019	Rami Malek	Bohemian Rhapsody
2020	joaquin phoenix	Joker (Joker)

• Best actress:

2016	brie larson	Room
2017	Emma Stone	La La Land
2018	Frances McDormand	Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Three Announcements for One Crime)
2019	Olivia Colman	The Favorite
2020	Renee Zellweger	judy

Grades

|1| No presenter and shorter, Oscar 2019 grows 12% in US audience. To access, click on here.

|2| How many votes does it take to get an Oscar Nomination in 2020? To access, click on here [in English].

|3| Who Votes for the Oscars? To access, click on here [in English].

|4| How many women are actually voting for the Oscar winners? To access, click on here.

Creditsof theimages:

[1] Valeriya Zankovych and Shutterstock

[2] André Luiz Moreira and Shutterstock

[3] Tinseltown and Shutterstock

By Daniel Neves
History teacher