The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it wouldn’t revoke Andrea Riseborough’s Oscar nomination for To Leslie. “The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded,” AMPAS CEO Bill Kramer said.
The Academy had been recently reviewing the campaign procedures surrounding this year’s Oscar nominees, a knee-jerk reaction to Riseborough’s little-seen film. The director, however, received a flood of support from fellow actors leading up to the January 24 nominations.
AMPAS said it was deciding “whether changes to the guidelines may be needed in a new era of social media and digital communication.”
During its brief theatrical release in October, To Leslie made a little over $27,000, which makes it one of the lowest-grossing films to receive an Oscar nomination. There was no budget for the awards campaign, and Risebourogh leaned on friends to support the film. Risebourogh and her team uploaded and entered it into the Academy’s screening portal. Screenings were hosted by Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Courteney Cox, Edward Norton, Jennifer Aniston, and Minnie Driver.
To Leslie co-star, Marc Maron, hosted the director on his podcast WTF where he ripped into the folks questioning their nomination. “Apparently, the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences or whatever the f*ck it is has decided to investigate Andrea Riseborough’s grassroots campaign to get her the Oscar nomination because I guess it so threatens their system to where they’re completely bought out by corporate interests in the form of studios.”
Here is Kramer’s statement in full:
“Based on concerns that surfaced last week around the To Leslie awards campaign, the Academy began a review into the film’s campaigning tactics. The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded. However, we did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern. These tactics are being addressed with the responsible parties directly.
“The purpose of the Academy’s campaign regulations is to ensure a fair and ethical awards process—these are core values of the Academy. Given this review, it is apparent that components of the regulations must be clarified to help create a better framework for respectful, inclusive, and unbiased campaigning. These changes will be made after this awards cycle and will be shared with our membership. The Academy strives to create an environment where votes are based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible films and achievements.”
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