Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to episode 29 of awards chatter the

Hollywood reporters awards podcast I'm the host Scott Feinberg, and on this very

special episode I basically outsourced the heavy lifting to Janice Min, the co-president and chief

creative officer of the Hollywood Reporter Billboard Media Group

who scored the interview that everybody wanted this week when she sat down with the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and its

CEO Dawn Hudson to discuss the massive controversy

surrounding the second consecutive year of Oscar nominations with very little representation

from people of color, none whatsoever in the major categories, as well as the

Academy's response to that situation, which included an announcement of plans to

overhaul its membership by removing from the voting roles people who are not quote unquote

active but before we get to that let's just recap some of the other stuff that's going

on at the moment. The Sundance Film Festival is still going down in Park City

where two of the biggest acquisitions were movies that may

have awards prospects down the road. Amazon for $10 million picked up Kenneth Lonergan's

Manchester By the Sea, which stars Casey Affleckleck and Fox Searchlight made a record 17.5

million dollar purchase of Nate Parkers the Birth of a Nation movie with the same

title as DW Griffith's racist 1915 film but in this case is actually about the

slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. Another big development this week, the

Producers Guild of America's top prize, the Darrell F. Zannick Award, went to the

big short.

Adam McKay's Zaney Dromedie topped nine other films to win this honor, six of which it is also

...