Nordic Stars Invited To Select Oscar Contenders
In an attempt to include more women, minorities and international filmmakers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has issued a record 683 invitations to new members this week. Among those invited are actress Alicia Vikander, documentary film maker Joshua Oppenheimer, and make-up artists Eva von Bahr and Love Larson.
If they accept their invitations, then the new members will be entitled to vote for Oscar nominees and winners alongside the other 7,000 members of the Academy.
Alicia Vikander became the first Swede in 41 years to win an Oscar for acting when she was named Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl, in which she portrays Gerda, an artist whose husband Einar begins to dress as a woman, but then gradually reveals that he is a woman and becomes Lili.
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, which was nominated for Best Documentary Feature and is a companion piece to The Act Of Killing, examines the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 through the eyes of a young optometrist who seeks out the men who killed his brother. Whilst testing their eyesight, he confronts them about their actions.
Eva von Bahr and Love Larson were nominated for Best Make-Up & Hairstyling for their work on The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, in which a man decides to escape through the window of a nursing home on his 100th birthday, and embarks on an absurd, intrepid journey.
Eva von Bahr told SVT: “It’s a little voice you have, but on the other hand, I think we will offer a more European perspective and then they might vote for things that Americans do not pay attention to in the same way as we do in Europe.”
In Dagens Nyheter, she added: “In the US, they are happy with large, sophisticated masks, but we will probably be looking for films in which the mask is small, but has great significance. Like in Foxcatcher, where Steve Carell’s nose changed so much that it affected his character.”
Also invited to join the Academy were: director Tobias Lindholm, director Nicolas Winding Refn, editor Pernille Bech Christensen, editor Adam Nielsen, editor Niels Pagh Andersen, producer Signe Byrge Sørensen, producer Christian Potalivo, costume designer Manon Rasmussen, and more.