Hollywood’s
motion picture academy unveiled strict new eligibility rules to boost diversity
among best picture Oscars nominees and the wider movie industry in a landmark
announcement Tuesday.

From 2024,
all films hoping to win Tinseltown’s most coveted prize will need to either
employ a minimum number of cast, crew, and administrative employees from
under-represented backgrounds, or directly tackle themes affecting those
communities.

The
groundbreaking move comes after years of criticism over a lack of diversity
among the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ members, and among the
Oscar nominees and winners they select.

While the
Academy has already taken steps to diversify its membership, Tuesday’s new
rules mark a more aggressive bid to re-shape Hollywood’s broader performance on
diversity.

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“We
believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting,
essential change in our industry,” said President David Rubin and CEO Dawn
Hudson in a statement.

Under the
new rules, films vying for best picture will need to comply with at least two
of four criteria designed to improve hiring practices and representation on and
off screen.

The first
criteria requires the movie to feature either a prominent actor from an
underrepresented group, 30 percent of its smaller roles from minorities, or to
address issues surrounding these communities as its main theme.

The second
stipulates that behind-the-scenes senior leadership or technical crew members
must be drawn from historically disadvantaged groups, which also include women,
LGBT and disabled communities.

The final
two measures concern offering internships and training to underrepresented
workers, and diversity in the movie’s marketing and distribution teams.

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Since 2015
and the #OscarsSoWhite social media campaign, the Academy has made concerted
efforts to broaden its membership.

The board of
governors vowed to double the number of women and non-white members by 2020,
following calls to boycott the glitzy Oscars.

The Academy
surpassed those membership goals, with 45 percent of this year’s intake women,
and 36 percent minorities.

The latest
move is the product of a new diversity task force announced in June — weeks
after mass anti-racism protests swept the United States following the killing
of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

The
standards are based on those already employed by Britain’s BAFTA, and “are
designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to
better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience,” said the
statement.

Films
contending for the best picture Oscar in 2022 and 2023 will not be bound by the
rules, but will need to submit to the Academy confidential data on the movies’
diversity based on the new criteria.

The Academy
also recently began hosting a series of panel discussions on racist tropes and
harmful stereotypes in Hollywood films.