In a 2.29 N.Y. Times piece about diversity concerns and the gradual implementation of new AMPAS voting rules, Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply state the following: “The academy has only a few months to repair damaged processes, internal relationships and its public image before the next Oscar season descends in late summer, bringing with it a chilling prospect: What if voters, even after a planned purge of inactive members, again snub actors of color?”
The purge will take a while to fully kick in, but in terms of the upcoming 2016 Oscar season Barnes and Cieply are essentially asking “what if Academy voters aren’t as impressed with Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation as many who attended the 2016 Sundance Film Festival were?”
Nation and possibly one other film — Barry Jenkins‘ Moonlight, a Plan B/A24 project about “black queer youth amid the temptations of the Miami drug trade” — are the only 2016 films made by and primarily starring African-Americans that seem to have, at least nominally, the markings of award-season contenders.
The only other film with an African-American theme and a sizable cast of African-American players is Gary Ross‘s The Free State of Jones (STX, 5.13), but this is basically a drama about a white savior — a true story of a Mississippi farmer, Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), who leads an armed rebellion against the Confederacy and marries a former slave, Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).
There’s also Jeff Nichols‘ Loving, a late ’50s-era drama about a real-life interracial marriage that briefly resulted in Mildred and Richard Loving (Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton) being sentenced to prison in Virginia.
Please check out HE’s just-posted 2016 Oscar Balloon — a rundown of over 55 films that may eventually register as awards fodder or at least as adult-friendly, review-driven fare. If I’m missing a black-centric film of any dimension — African-American focused, performed or created — please advise.