Los Angeles (AFP)
The next Oscars ceremony, the most prestigious cinema awards in the United States upset by the Covid-19 pandemic, will be piloted by director Steven Soderbergh, known in particular for his disaster film "Contagion", its organizers announced on Tuesday.
The coronavirus which is shaking up Hollywood and the entire calendar of the film industry has forced the Academy of Oscars to postpone its 93rd edition, now scheduled for April 25, 2021, and to relax the criteria for competing, at a time when most cinemas remain closed to the public.
The format of the ceremony (totally virtual or not) is still undetermined at this stage but the Academy unveiled on Tuesday the trio "dream thought to respond directly" to the unusual situation and design a show followed around the world.
"The next Oscars are the perfect opportunity to innovate and rethink the possibilities around an awards ceremony," said in a statement the president of the Academy of Oscars, David Rubin, and its general manager Dawn Hudson.
To organize this ceremony of a new kind, Steven Soderbergh, crowned best director at the Oscars for his film "Traffic" (2000), will be supported by the former producer of the Grammy Awards Jesse Collins and the producer Stacey Sher ("Django Unchained" ).
Soderbergh and Sher have worked together in the past, on "Erin Brockovich" and "Contagion", now praised for having predicted, as early as 2011, a large part of the aspects dictated by the current pandemic: social distancing, improvised hospitals and morgues, running vaccine, etc.
The American director was even chosen this year by the Hollywood Producers' Association to lead a "crisis unit" responsible for organizing the resumption of film activities.
The organizers of the Oscars have yet to say whether they are considering a ceremony with stars present physically, 100% virtual (like that of the Emmy Awards 2020), or a mixture of the two.
Most of California, and Los Angeles in particular, has just entered new containment.
"We are as excited as we are terrified," Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher said in a statement.
"Because of the extraordinary situation we all find ourselves in, we have a chance to take a new interest in movies and the people who make them, and we hope to create a show that resembles the movies we love," they continue.
The Oscars ceremony has been postponed eight weeks from its original date.
The deadline for applying has been extended by two months, at the end of February.
Exceptionally this year, the Academy of Oscars will authorize films released directly on video-on-demand platforms to compete, without going through cinemas.
© 2020 AFP