Through Her Lens: 2015 (The 88th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Previous Episodes: 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Introduction / Explanation

The sting of the #OscarsSoWhite movement from the 87th Oscars continued as no people of color were nominated in the acting categories for the second consecutive year. Idris Elba won the SAG for Supporting Actor for Beasts of No Nation, but Netflix was a completely new player at the time and unable to get traction in the Oscar race. Jada Pinkett Smith called for an Oscar boycott after her husband Will Smith missed in Actor, but his film Concussion had disappointed at the box office and received mixed reviews. The tension was high enough that The Hollywood Reporter even felt the need to clarify that “there [were] no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar [that] year”.

The lack of diversity extended to gender in Best Director (the subject of this series) where no female directors were in the conversation with the arguable exception of Angelina Jolie early on before By the Sea began to screen...

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Interview: Lin-Manuel Miranda on "Encanto" and "tick, tick...BOOM!"

by Nathaniel R

at the world premiere of "tick, tick, BOOM!"

I had the pleasure of interviewing Lin-Manuel Miranda in November while he was doing press for Encanto, now streaming on Disney+ with its soundtrack doing great business, too. He was energetic and smiling and gave great quote. Just a few days later, in a significantly less arranged moment, we came face-to-face the night of tick, tick... BOOM!'s premiere in Los Angeles. The response to the movie that night couldn't have been dreamier. He looked elated if significantly more tired than he had over Zoom. He admitted at the party that the entire week was a total blur. Just the week? The entire past year has been one Lin-Manuel Miranda highlight after another. So much so that we named him one of our top three entertainers of the year. In addition to questions about Encanto, tick, tick...BOOM!, and Hamilton, I made sure to ask him how he finds time for sleep.

[This interview has been edited for clarity.]

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Through Her Lens: 2016 (The 89th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Previous Episodes: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Introduction / Explanation

This year at the Oscars marked a landmark in representation. Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight became the first Best Picture winner to star an all-Black cast and the first that was LGBTQ+-themed. This win was even more remarkable as the film went up against the heavily nominated frontrunner La La Land, a romantic musical. This year also marked an unprecedented amount of racial representation in the acting categories, with seven out of 20 nominees being non-White, two of them winning.

However, this considerable victory in diversity did not extend to gender. In the directing category  all the nominees were male. At the time, not much discourse and coverage was given to gender as the focus on representation was mostly around race, especially after the two-year run of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign...

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Oscar charts: The more interesting than we were expecting it to be "Best Director" race

by Nathaniel R

The annual competition for Best Director at the Oscars is in a very interesting era. The Academy has become increasingly international so, in theory, we can expect more international figures to pop up in this category rather than just the superstar auteurs. Though it's long had the same racial problems as the acting categories it's always had those in a much less visible way... until recently. And it wasn't all that long ago that people (or, more specifically, the media) didn't grouse about no women being up for the prize. The movement for equity behind the camera only went truly mainstream in the past decade. Female directors have always been around, of course, if not in the same numbers they are today it's a topic Juan Carlos is currently investigating as he moves backwards in time through the Oscar years in his series "Through Her Lens" (new episode drops tomorrow).

For the first time in history we could be looking at a second consecutive win by a female auteur since Jane Campion is currently the favourite for The Power of the Dog. But who else will join her in the lineup? 

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Through Her Lens: 2017 (The 90th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Previous Episodes: 2018 | 2019 | 2020-21

The 2017 awards season was marred by the multiple accusations of sexual abuse and harrassment made towards several industry giants, mainly notorious film producer Harvey Weinstein. This catapulted the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement into the international spotlight, addressing women’s issues in a broader context, especially with a misogynistic president sitting at the White House.

At that year’s Oscars, Greta Gerwig became only the fifth woman to be nominated for Best Director in the awards’ ninety years of existence. A moment that must be celebrated, but also an embarrassing reminder of how Hollywood has failed women directors, whether in awards or in actual film production. Out of the 341 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2017 (90th Academy Awards), 60 (17.6%) were directed/co-directed by women...

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