And the award goes to...

TF’s predictions for the Oscar ballot...

to celebrities with little need for them, let alone court further transmission at potential super-spreader events? And what actual benefit is glory to films when there are so few cinemas open to show them, not least in the larger metropolises where the audiences who take heed of such things are most likely to be found?

The counter-argument is that enabling the Oscars, the Baftas and the like to take place in at least some recognisable fashion is a sign that things can and will get back to normal, and to not have them take place at all is to both admit and concede defeat. This must have been a factor in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirming last June the 2021 Oscars would go ahead, albeit on a date (25 April) two months later than normal. (Not since the early 1930s, when the Academy Awards were routinely held in November, has the event ever had such a late slot in the calendar.)

The eligibility period for Academy Awards consideration was extended accordingly beyond the standard 31 December deadline, giving film-makers until 28 February (the original date for this year’s ceremony) to qualify. “Our hope is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalised for something beyond anyone’s control,” said AMPAS chiefs David Rubin and Dawn Hudson, promising that their 2021 awards – co-produced, intriguingly, by Steven Contagion Soderbergh – would be simultaneously “safe and celebratory”.

Yet it’s not just the date of the Oscars that has changed this year. The eligibility criteria has too, the widespread closure of cinemas across the US forcing organisers to temporarily drop their insistence that films must be shown in a Los Angeles movie theatre for at least a week in order to be in contention.

For this year only, it was ruled last year, films that were intended to be shown in cinemas but debuted on a streaming service first would be eligible for Oscars: a major concession to not just streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon, but also studios like Universal and Disney that made the contentious decision to bypass cinemas and go straight to VOD with movies like Mulan, Soul and Trolls World Tour. Bafta and other awards bodies quickly tweaked their own rules in lockstep – a measure that, according to Bafta’s Marc Samuelson, “should help the smaller, independent, documentary, foreign language and particularly British films to be seen in good

time.” The Bafta Film Awards, incidentally, will be held a fortnight before the Oscars on 11 April, the same date it took place on in 1999 in the days when the event used to come after its glitzier US counterpart.

It remains to be seen if this year’s Bafta and Oscar nominations (set to be announced on 9 and 15 March respectively) will reflect the broader range of candidates potentially on offer, or if they will merely see the streaming service titans prevail in the absence of conventional studio releases. Netflix has a host of heavy hitters, among them Mank, The Trial Of The Chicago 7 and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, while Amazon’s hopefuls include One Night In Miami, Sound Of Metal and the documentary Time.

A likelier scenario, perhaps, is for that shortfall to be made up by the likes of Minari, Promising Young Woman and The Father, critical darlings that launched a year ago at Sundance – as well as, of course, the much-praised Nomadland, whose presence on pretty much every Best Picture shortlist this year was virtually ensured by its receiving top prize at both Venice and Toronto. Don’t be surprised though if a few latecomers crash the party, the longer eligibility period giving the likes of the Russo brothers’ Cherry, Robin Wright’s Land, Lee Daniels’ The United States Vs. Billie Holliday and the Black Panther drama Judas And The Black Messiah the chance to sneak in under the wire.

Ask most pundits and they’ll probably say Nomadland has a lock on both the Best Film and Best Director races, offering a very real possibility Chloé Zhao will become the first Chinese director (and only the second woman) to win the Best Director Oscar. Could this be the year, then, that traditionally under-represented voices get to be heard? It certainly looks that way if the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards are anything to go by, the nominations for which were dominated by films by female writer-directors. (Not just Nomadland and Promising Young Woman either; Sarah Gavron’s Rocks and Rose Glass’ Saint Maud got a decent look-in too.)

Overall, then, this is shaping up to be an awards season like no other, from the people who get the prizes to the way they get given them. Who will be the first winner, one wonders, who’ll forget to unmute themselves while they’re delivering an acceptance speech from a socially distanced location?