Ram Charan, Jr NTR, Karan Johar get invite from Oscars to join the Academy

LOS ANGELES: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently made its membership invitations. And guess what? Indian film celebrities Ram Charan, Mani Ratnam, Karan Johar, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Chandrabose and M M Keeravani have been invited by the organisation to be members. ‘RRR’ art director Sabu Cyril and cinematographer K K Senthil Kumar have also been invited.

“The Academy is proud to welcome these artists and professionals into our membership”, Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy president Janet Yang said in a statement, Variety reported. “They represent extraordinary global talent across cinematic disciplines and have made a vital impact on the arts and sciences of motion pictures and on movie fans worldwide”, the statement said.

Austin Butler, Ke Huy Quan, Keke Palmer, N T Rama Rao Jr and music superstar Taylor Swift are also among the 398 artists and executives invited to join the membership of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

If all of this year’s invitees accept membership, it will bring the total number of overall Academy members to 10,817 (up from 10,665 last year), with 9,375 eligible to vote (a decrease from 9,665 due to deaths, retirements and moving to emeritus status) for the 96th Oscars, set to take place on March 10, 2024.

The 2023 class is 40 per cent women. Of them, 34 per cent belong to underrepresented ethnic/racial communities and 52 per cent hail from 51 countries and territories outside the United States.

Other interesting statistics about this invitee class are four branches invited more women than men to join — casting directors, costume designers, makeup artists and hairstylists and marketing and public relations. The Actors and Directors branches had most of their candidates hail from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities.

Eight filmmakers have been invited to multiple branches — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Colm Bairead (The Quiet Girl), Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), Antonio Campos (The Devil All the Time), Lukas Dhont (Close), Ana Katz (The Dog Who Wouldn’t be Quiet) and Santiago Mitre (Argentina, 1985). However, they can only select one upon accepting membership.

In 2022, the Oscars invited 397 new members, including singer Billie Eilish, Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, ‘Belfast’ stars Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan and Disney executive Dana Walden.

With the addition of this new member class, the Academy is now 34 per cent women, 18 per cent from underrepresented communities and 20 per cent from outside the U.S.

This year’s slate of awards contenders will have massive star power and legendary filmmakers in the mix such as Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ with Leonardo DiCaprio and Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune Part Two’ featuring Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet. (ANI)