CinÉireann May 2018 | Page 23

independents to get the nomination.

I'm quite optimistic about the rule change. It certainly makes it harder and you still have to have a very good film. We were worried about that and obviously we did get nominated, and Loving Vincent got nominated as well. So there were two indies in there. And there were plenty of other independent films that would have been deserving of a nomination. The thing about it is that it is very very difficult to win as an indie because nobody in the Academy sees your independent film. When you get nominated you are sort of preaching to the choir. The animation chapter are all animators and people who love animation and whose lives are dedicated to the art of animation. We came in with The Secret of Kells as a very different sort of original hand-drawn animation, which they loved when everything else was CGI. And at that time, apart from the odd Ghibli film that might come out, that was unique. They were very enthusiastic about it and then the same for Song of the Sea.We try hard to be original and the Academy appreciated that, the animation chapter did anyway. But then when it comes to the thosands of Academy members they really have to make an effort to see the film if you are not a massive wide release like most of the other animated films, like the Disney and the Pixars and the Dreamworks films. It can be very difficult to compete with that. They literally have to pick the DVD and put it in the machine to watch it. And they may not be as interested. I think that one of the reasons for changing the rules was to make the wider academy more interested in looking at the animated films and not just seeing them like "Oh I'll look at this animated film now because my kids liked that when we went to see it at the cinema last weekend". People were thinking that the wider academy were not appreciating the independent animation films and the bigger animated films too. With the rule change there maybe is a chance in the future that an independent animated film might get it, because if you are adding so many hundred academy members to the nomination part and they volunteer then at least they are actually seeing the longlist and a wider array of films, and then getting more into it and telling their friends. There's an optimistic way to look at it. That it might help an independent film at least get recognised because they are aware of it during the nomination process.

With Oscar broadening the Academy membership away from older white men in the Mid-West you also have a better chance for the inclusion of more international stories and more diverse stories.

I do think that with the rule change it is probably harder for more indies to get nominated. You still have to be very very good, but there's a chance that it might limit the independents getting through to nomination, but then maybe the upshot is that more Academy members may have watched more animated films and be more eager to vote for them at the final stage. But anyway awards are awards. They are a great advertisement. Just getting the nomination for us for any of the films has been great marketing for them worldwide to get the word out and get the name out. For us we always see that any nomination we get or festival win that we get really helps with the profile of the film. Our main concern is that kids will go in and see it or that families will go and see a film like The Breadwinner or a story like that.

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