How Many ‘Starts’ Does Awards Season Really Need?

The Governors Awards and the Hollywood Film Awards each claimed to be the beginning of the season, however we expect they’re mendacity

The Hollywood Film Awards, which passed off on Sunday night on the Beverly Hilton Hotel, is a shindig that TheWrap tends to disregard. But it’s additionally “the official launch of awards season.” I do know that as a result of on the HFA web site, there’s a ® mark subsequent to that phrase. And it couldn’t have a registered trademark that wasn’t true, proper?

The factor is, I used to be on the Academy’s Governors Awards, an occasion we do cowl, every week earlier than the HFA. And in his speech, Academy president David Rubin stated that his present was the start of awards season. So who ought to I belief? I imply, the HFA has that ®, however the Academy is just about the entire motive why an awards season even exists, so shouldn’t they get to resolve when it begins?

But I’ve made up my very own thoughts on this one: Both of them are mendacity. By the time the Governors Awards rolled round on Oct. 27, we’d already had BAFTA Los Angeles’ Britannia Awards, the American Society of Cinematographers’ Student Heritage Awards and the Student Academy Awards, plus the nominations for the Gotham Awards, the IDA Documentary Awards and the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.

Also Read: 91-Year-Old Lina Wertmuller Steals the Show at Oscars Governors Awards

By the time the Hollywood Film Awards passed off, nominations had been introduced by the British Independent Film Awards, voting had begun within the Writers Guild Awards’ TV sequence classes, Oscar voters within the Best International Feature Film class had already seen 38 of the contending movies at Academy screenings, and voters within the Documentary Branch of the Academy had already been given entry to 154 screening hyperlinks of eligible movies.

More to the purpose, folks had been buzzing about and handicapping potential Oscar movies for months: “The Irishman” because the New York Film Festival in late September, “Jojo Rabbit” because the Toronto Film Festival earlier that month, “Marriage Story” because the Venice Film Festival in August, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Parasite” since their premieres in Cannes in May.

Plus, administrators, producers, actors and others who labored on these movies have been making the rounds of events, premieres and interview suites for months.

Also Read: It’s Only October, So Why the Oscar Rush?

So no, the Hollywood Film Awards weren’t the launch of awards season, and the Governors Awards weren’t the beginning of awards season. Awards season, notably on this 12 months of an earlier Oscars present, has been right here for some time and goes to be right here for some time longer.

But right here’s one factor we do know: The official finish of awards season, trademarked or not, shall be on the night of February 9,  simply after the Oscars hand out the Best Picture award.

And by that time, after all, we’ll have already seen the unofficial launch of Emmy season.

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“Lionheart”

This week’s awards tempest in a teapot is over the Academy’s disqualification of Nigeria’s first-ever submission to the international-feature class, which till this 12 months was the Best Foreign Language Film class. I wrote about this at some size on Tuesday, however perhaps it’s value reiterating that Nigeria is free to submit movies that aren’t in English, simply because the U.Ok., Ireland and Australia are (and do).

Also Read: Here’s Why Nigeria’s Oscars Disqualification Was the Only Move the Academy Could Have Made

And it’s odd that the Nigerian choice committee describes the disqualification as “eye-opening,” because the Academy’s announcement of the class identify change included these traces (emphasis mine):

“The class identify change doesn’t change any current class guidelines, the submission course of, or eligibility necessities. An worldwide function movie is outlined as a feature-length movement image produced exterior the United States of America with a predominantly…