More determined than ever to combat the misrepresentation/erasure of people of colour in film is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
How they plan to achieve what many believed was the impossible?
Penalising movie projects which make a concerted effort to exclude ethnic minorities in front of and behind the camera.
Major news below…
From 2019, any movie which hopes to bag a BAFTA will be required to satisfy a list of requirements designed to encourage healthy diversity within the entertainment industry.
— On-screen characters and themes
— Senior roles and crew
— Industry training and career progression
— Audience access and appeal to under-represented audiences
To qualify for a nomination in the categories for Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer movie makers must meet at least two of the requirements listed above.
The groundbreaking new rules are to be implemented after the organisation acknowledged the way in which negative and inaccurate portrayals of ethnic minorities reinforced stereotypes which stifled movie-goers in their everyday lives.
We believe they are a flexible and achievable model, which the whole industry can adopt as a shared language for understanding diversity. This widens the pool of potential members and ensures that it’s only talent, and not also who you know, that enables BAFTA membership.
The organisation FIND add:
Our tv and cinema screens should reflect the diversity of the audiences who watch them and we should be able to see our lives, hopes and fears accurately portrayed. For too long the presence of non-white communities, women, people with disabilities, people from poor or working class backgrounds and people from the LGBT community has either been non-existent or misrepresented on our screens.