Numerous filmmakers, including directors Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Damien Chazelle and Ang Lee, have criticized Oscar Academy plans for streamlining the award ceremony. In an open letter, signed by nearly a hundred filmmakers, they put pressure on the Academy to maintain the usual format of the trophy award.

It is an "insult" for filmmakers, if important cinema art is degraded, it says in the letter. Signed by Sandra Bullock, Emma Stone, Jon Hamm, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Robert de Niro.

It's about plans of the Film Academy to hand over the trophies in four categories for the first time during commercial breaks at the show on February 24th. So the transmission time is to be shortened to three hours. Affected are the sections camera, editing, live action short film and make-up and hair styling, as the lenders announced on Monday. The handover of the prizes in the four sections should be on the Internet to be seen, the acceptance speeches of the winners are to be transmitted in a shorter form in the TV show, it said.

Oscar-nominated filmmakers, including "Roma" director Alfonso Cuarón and US cinematographer Caleb Deschanel ("work without an author") have already criticized. "Camera and editing are the heart of our art," said Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro ("Shape of Water").

Reposting, revised: Cinematography & Editing are at the very heart of our craft. They are not inherited from a theatrical or literary tradition: they are cinema itself.

- Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) 13 February 2019

The Film Academy defended the planned format on Wednesday, saying that the acceptance speeches of all winners will be broadcast live. The planned reduction in the four divisions concerns, for example, the path of the prize winners on the stage, which is cut out. In the coming years, four to six other categories would be selected in a rotation process, the Academy said.

The 91st Academy Awards will be held on 24 February for the first time in 30 years without a permanent host. Instead, Hollywood stars are to introduce in individual sections of the show. Recently there had been an Oscar Gala in 1989 without moderators. Who is nominated this year, learn here.