×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Invites Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Yoshiaki Nishimura, More

posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its list of membership invitations on Wednesday. The list includes 683 invitations, the largest number of invitations in the Academy's history. The invitations are part of a series of new membership rules to promote diversity in the Academy's ranks, after this year's nominations led to a backlash against the perceived lack of diversity among nominees. The Academy initiated the changes in January, with the intent to radically diversify its membership by the year 2020.

The Academy extended invitations to the following Japanese creatives:

Additionally, Oldboy director Park Chan-wook was also invited.

Yonebayashi and Studio Ghibli's When Marnie Was There (Omoide no Marnie) earned a nomination for the Animated Feature Film category this year, although Inside Out won the award.

The Academy has invited Miyazaki at least four previous times, and it also invited Studio Ghibli co-founder and producer Toshio Suzuki in 2014. Miyazaki's Spirited Away film won an Oscar in 2003, and he personally came to Los Angeles to accept his Honorary Academy Award in 2014.

The Academy invited Studio Ghibli director Isao Takahata (Only Yesterday, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya) last year, but he declined the invitation.

Composer Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away, Departures), a frequent collaborator on Miyazaki's films, was invited in 2013. Kunio Katō was invited in 2009 after becoming only the second Japanese animator to win an Oscar with his "La Maison en Petits Cubes" ("Tsumiki no Ie" or House of Blocks) short.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter (Gregg Kilday) via Dark Horizons

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.


discuss this in the forum (4 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

News homepage / archives