7 Indians Among Oscar Academy’s New Members

Los Angeles: Director Deepa Mehta and actors Freida Pinto And Sharmila Tagore are among the seven Indian-origin film personalities that have been invited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to be part of its new class of members.

The Academy invited a record 683 new members — 46 per cent female and 41 per cent persons of colour —- as it aims to diversify following criticism of its largely white and male membership.

Apart from Tagore, Pinto and Mehta, British filmmaker of Indian origin Asif Kapadia who bagged the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for Amy, based on the life of late singer Amy Winehouse — also features in this year's class of new members.

The other notable people of Indian-origin in the class of 2016 are Pixar animator Sanjay Bakshi, producer Anish Savjani and animator Sanjay Patel.

The diversity push was in response to the #OscarsSoWhite uproar that took place earlier this year, when all-white acting nominees put a microscope on the Academy’s largely white and male membership.

“We are proud to welcome these new members to the Academy, and know they view this as an opportunity and not just an invitation, a mission and not just a membership,” Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement.

Isaacs also encouraged Hollywood and the larger creative community to “open its doors wider, and create opportunities for anyone interested in working in this incredible and storied industry”.

Issacs, who is the 35th and current President of AMPAS, is the first African-American to hold this office, and the third woman, after Bette Davis and Fay Kanin. The fact that she is a woman and a person of color speaks in itself the diversity in the Academy.

The new class is by far the largest ever announced by the Academy — and it features celebrities aged as young as 24 and as old as 91.

On the Hollywood front, the new members also include Boyega, Idris Elba, Brie Larson. Also invited are Kate Beckinsale, Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan and Emma Watson.

Following the controversy in January 2016, the Academy had vowed to make radical changes to its voting requirements, recruiting process and governing structure, with an aim towards increasing the diversity of its membership.