New Academy Governor On #OscarsSoWhite Crisis: 'Film Industry Has A Diversity Problem'

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has added three new governors to its 51-member board and appointed six minority members to other leadership positions.

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the new appointees late Tuesday after a meeting of the organization's Board of Governors. The board also ratified other changes proposed in January in response to the #OscarsSoWhite crisis aimed at increasing diversity, including limiting Oscar voting rights to those active in the movie business.

One of the new governors, film director Gregory Nava, said the film industry needs to make more films with diverse casts in order for those films to receive the Academy's recognition. The other two new governors are Oscar telecast producer Reginald Hudlin and "Kung-Fu Panda 3" director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.

"The film industry has a diversity problem," he told CBS2's Cristy Fajardo. "The Academy can't nominate films that don't get made."

Nava's film "El Norte," which told the story of undocumented Guatemalan workers coming to the U.S., was nominated for an Oscar in 1985.

But he said getting such a film made today would be much harder than it was then.

"It's more difficult today because the economics and business of film has changed," he said.

For example, studios and producers 30 years ago were making films targeted primarily to the U.S. market. But now, Nava said, 75 to 80 percent of studio films' box-office revenue comes from foreign markets. That can make it hard to get certain independent films made.

"Producers have to think, 'How is this film going to do in Germany or China?'" he said. "That's part of the problem."

Still, he said the Academy wants to reward movies made and starring people of diverse backgrounds. He pointed to the two most recent recipients of the Best Director Oscar: Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, both of Mexico.

"I think the Academy has become a lightning rod for an overall criticism of the media that there is not enough diversity in film and TV to reflect what the U.S. is like."

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