Next year’s Golden Globes promises to be a major relaunch for the troubled awards show as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) continues to seek ways to reinvent the event, according to president Helen Hoehne.
Hoehne, speaking at the Zurich Film Festival, listed the changes made by the HFPA to address the criticisms which led to a boycott by the industry of the festival this year.
The HFPA has over the past year “made diversity, equity and inclusion really the cornerstone of our organization. Because many award shows are under scrutiny for corruption and diversity issues, we changed our governance. We cleaned up.
“It took a long time and we’re still working on becoming better and making this a very transparent process and really having people engage in award shows again and get them excited about tuning in.”
Hoehne reiterated the HFPA’s recent announcement that in addition to 21 diverse members admitted last year, it had added 103 new international voters, bringing the total number of voters to 200, “which we’re thrilled about. Most of them are female, which I’m also very happy about. The majority of them are diverse, making our awards show one of the first to feature the most diverse and women-friendly members.
“We’re excited – this is only the beginning. I hope we can increase those numbers next year and the following year and really grow as an award show and become better.”
Hoehne also added: “We’re thinking of other ways to reinvent ourselves and make the show exciting, bring on an exciting host and really make it a fun party.”
Joining Hoehne at the festival’s Zurich Summit industry event to discuss the “award season of the future”John Lesher, president Le Grisbi Production, Greg Shapiro, producer of Kingsgate Films and Matthijs Wouterknol CEO of European Film Academy were among them.
Shapiro, Lesher, and Knol spoke out about the challenges facing the Oscars format.
“I have ideas as a viewer, as an audience member, because it’s long and it’s slow and it’s difficult to watch sometimes,” Shapiro said. “On the one hand, I know there are a lot of categories that the public doesn’t understand necessarily, but they’re really important to the craft and they deserve to be recognized. In various years the Academy has tried to move them off the show, and it always really upset me. For me, it’s part of the process and they deserve the recognition.”
The technical awards are too many for some audiences, who may only be interested in the top category.
“It’s a really difficult question to answer because the show would be more popular – more people would watch it if it were shorter and focused on the awards that people actually have an appreciation for, which are basically the actors and picture and director. But I for one, personally, would be disappointed if the technical awards would no longer be part it.”
Lesher also echoed this sentiment, noting that the Oscars are equally entertaining for viewers as they are for those watching on TV.
“People will watch it if you make it interesting and relevant. You must make it entertaining. I think they fail because they just kind of do what they do and it has a certain format and it’s long.
“It feels old fashion,”He added that he finds it often, “really tacky, really corny. I want to like it … but why does it look like that? I’m just cringing sometimes at how bad I think it is.”
Knol stated that the old format of award shows does not work any more. “regular linear TV doesn’t work that much anymore.”
Knol has firmly rejected the idea of imitating American-style shows when Knol discusses the European Film Academy’s aims and European Film Awards.
“The European Film Academy has a different aim. Even though we do an award show as well, it’s not the main thing that we want to do.”
He pointed out that the European Film Awards had shown their appreciation. “was never set up to be a huge TV broadcast.”
“We’re worried about the fact that in Europe they’ve been doing exactly the same as here in Zurich: We’re talking about the American infrastructure, and we need to adapt to it. That’s not what I want and also not what the European Film Academy wants.”
In addition to its more low-key awards show, the European Film Academy is undertaking different initiatives to promote European film across the continent, such as its Month of European Film, which showcases and celebrates the year’s top pics in 35 countries from November to December, culminating with the European Film Awards, which this year takes place in Reykjavik on Dec. 10.