International
Academy issues new rules for docs’ eligibility
MUMBAI: Respond to long-standing criticisms of its feature documentary selection process, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has issued a new set of rules affecting the eligibility of documentaries that will compete for the 85th Academy Awards next year.
The new documentary rules will open up the first round of voting in the documentary category to the full 157 members of the documentary branch. Under the current system, a shortlist of eligible films had first been determined by a vote of smaller committees drawn from the documentary branch.
Another major change in the category are: Features that hope to qualify must play seven-day qualifying runs in both New York and Los Angeles akin to the current rules but they must also be reviewed by either The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times.
To facilitate the change in the first round of voting, filmmakers will be required to submit 200 DVDs, an increase over the 30 DVDs that currently are required. In the final round of voting, Academy members must see all the nominated films, but under the new rules they will be allowed to view them digitally or on DVD, which should make it easier for more members to participate, since previously the films had to be seen either in commercial theaters or at Academy screenings.
Under the current system, some documentaries have been screened below the radar in locations such as Encino or Long Island in hopes of qualifying without attracting media attention, either because they were headed to a broadcast setting like HBO or because their actual theatrical release was scheduled for a later date to take advantage of the publicity that comes with nominations.
The review requirement is designed to limit the number of qualifying documentaries to films with real theatrical life as opposed to the much larger number of films that are primarily designed to play online or on TV and might make only token appearances in theaters.
The documentary branch’s selection practices drew new criticism this year when high-profile documentaries like Steve James’ The Interrupters, Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, Errol Morris’ Tabloid and Asif Kapadia’s Senna failed to make the shortlist of 15 documentaries from which five best-picture nominees will be drawn.
The new rules, however, will allow more Academy members to take part in the initial voting, which could result in movies with broader appeal making the cut.
LOS ANGELES: Acting has never been an easy profession, but in recent years, it has acquired a new existential anxiety. Artificial intelligence can now mimic faces, clone voices and, in theory at least, speak any language it is fed. The fear that actors may soon be replaced by algorithms no longer belongs exclusively to science fiction. And yet, despite the rise of digital inauthenticity, some performers remain stubbornly resistant to replacement. The reason is not celebrity, nor even talent. It is language.
On paper, this should not be a problem. AI can translate. It can imitate accents. It can string together grammatically correct sentences in dozens of languages. But acting, inconveniently, is not about grammatical correctness. It is about meaning, and meaning is where AI still falters.
Machine translation offers a cautionary tale. Google Translate, now powered by neural AI, has improved markedly since its debut in 2006. It can manage menus, emails and airport signage with impressive efficiency. What it struggles with, however, are the moments that matter most: idioms, metaphors, irony, and cultural shorthand. Ask it to translate a joke, a threat disguised as politeness, or a line heavy with emotional subtext, and it begins to unravel. Acting lives precisely in those gaps.
This matters because film language is rarely literal. Scripts, particularly in independent cinema, rely on figurative speech and symbolism to convey what characters cannot say outright. Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver is a useful example. The film’s recurring use of red operates on multiple levels: grief, desire, repression, liberation, and memory. These meanings are inseparable from the Spanish cultural context and emotional cadence. A translation may convey the words, but not the weight they carry. An AI-generated performance might replicate the sound, but not the sense.
This is where multilingual actors gain their edge. Performers such as Penélope Cruz and Sofía Vergara do not simply switch between languages; they move between cultural logics. Their fluency allows them to inhabit characters without flattening them for international consumption. Language, for them, is not an accessory but a structuring force.
Beyond European cinema, this becomes even more pronounced. Languages such as Hindi, Arabic and Mandarin are spoken by hundreds of millions of people and underpin vast cinematic traditions. As global audiences grow more interconnected, the demand for authenticity increases rather than diminishes. Viewers can tell when a performance has been filtered through approximation. Subtle errors, misplaced emphasis, and an unnatural rhythm break the illusion.
There is also a practical dimension. Multilingualism expands opportunity. Sofía Vergara has spoken openly about how learning English enabled her to work beyond Colombia and access Hollywood roles. But this movement is not a one-way export of talent into English-speaking cinema. Multilingual actors carry stories, styles and sensibilities back with them, enriching multiple industries at once.
Cinema has always thrived on such hybridity. Denzel Washington’s performances, for instance, draw on the cultural realities of growing up African American in the United States, while also reflecting stylistic influences from classic Hollywood and Westerns. His work demonstrates how identity and influence intersect on screen. Multilingual actors extend this intersection further, embodying multiple cultural frameworks simultaneously.
At times, linguistic authenticity is not merely artistic but ethical. Films that confront historical trauma, such as Schindler’s List, rely on language to anchor their moral seriousness. When Jewish actors perform in German, the choice is not incidental. Language becomes a site of memory and confrontation. It is difficult to imagine an automated voice carrying that responsibility without hollowing it out.
This is why claims that AI heralds the death of language miss the point. Language is not just a delivery system for information. It is a repository of history, humour, power and pain. Fluency is not only about knowing what to say, but when to hesitate, when to understate, and when to let silence do the work. These are not technical problems waiting to be solved; they are human instincts shaped by lived experience.
AI may one day improve its grasp of metaphor and nuance. It may even learn to sound convincing. But acting is not about sounding convincing; it is about being convincing. Until algorithms can acquire memory, cultural inheritance and emotional intuition, multilingual actors will remain irreplaceable. AI may learn to speak. But it cannot yet learn to mean.
In an industry increasingly tempted by shortcuts, language remains stubbornly resistant to automation. And for actors who can move between worlds, linguistic, cultural, and emotional, that resistance is not a weakness, but a quiet, enduring advantage.
