By Lindsey Bahr
The organization behind the Oscars elected over a dozen individuals to its board of governors, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Monday. The 2024-2025 board of governors include both first-timers, like director Patricia Cardoso, and veterans like Rita Wilson, Warner Bros. co-chair and CEO Pam Abdy and composer Lesley Barber.
Those elected to the board for the first time include production designer K.K. Barrett and producer Jennifer Fox. All will join the likes of Ava DuVernay, Lou Diamond Phillips, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Reitman, Ruth E. Carter and Jason Blum on the 55-person board representing the organization's 19 branches.
As of this election, representation of those belonging to an underrepresented racial or ethnic group increased from 25% to 27%. Female representation remained static from last year at 53%.
They help oversee the academy's strategic and financial matters and vote on policies like memberships and awards. The most significant recent change was the announcement that they would add an award for casting directors for films released in 2025 and beyond. The board of governors also decides who will be honored with honorary Oscar statuettes each year at the untelevised event known as the Governors Awards.
The organization is riding high after a successful Oscars ceremony that was widely well-received and saw a boost in viewership. Last month the academy also announced a $500 million fundraising campaign to ensure long-term, global support for its Oscar prizes, museum and educational programming in view of its 100th anniversary in 2028.
Lindsey Bahr is an AP film writer
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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