Academy Member: Diversity Push ‘Insulting to Black People'

This open letter from Milton Justice, an Oscar winner for the 1986 documentary Down and Out in America and a member of the documentary branch, is the first in a series of open letters from Academy members that THR has received, has verified and will publish about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the Academy’s resulting rule change.

Having won an Oscar, I’m safe. Otherwise, I suppose I would have had to get my agent at CAA to write a letter assuring the Academy that even though I haven’t produced a film in the past 10 years, there are three scripts on his desk he has not yet been able to set up, thus indicating activity in the past 10 years. That is, unless you can count the short film I directed, which made it into several festivals, or the web series I directed, which was nominated for a Producers Guild Award. Or do the 15 years I’ve watched an average of 100 documentaries a year, as a volunteer member of the Academy and later a member of the documentary branch, qualify as involvement in the Industry?

Read the rest of the article here.

COMMENTS