Hollywood
E-voting for Oscars simplified
MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is making significant changes to simplify its electronic voting system, which got almost as much flack last awards season as the Obamacare website is currently receiving. The changes involve reducing the number of passwords required, making the VIN number assigned to each member invisible to users and making it easier to change passwords.
The changes, developed over the past eight months since e-voting was used by the Academy for the first time to determine winners of the 85th Oscars, come in response to gripes from members who found the online voting website, offered as an alternative to a traditional paper ballot, difficult to navigate.
The Academy also is encouraging its members to log on to their member accounts on Monday to pay their annual dues and to register how they wish to vote this year, either electronically or by paper ballot. The email outlined the improvements that have been made to the online voting process.
The biggest change to e-voting this year is that members will now be able to use a single user name and password for both sites. Also, the Academy is making it easier to change passwords.
In spite of last year’s e-voting challenges, the Academy eventually reported, at an unprecedented all-members meeting on 4 May that there had been record voting-participation of 90 per cent in large part because of e-voting.
Hollywood
Who is Geeta Gandbhir? The director behind two separate Oscar-nominated films in one historic year
The Emmy-winning filmmaker makes history with dual documentary nominations at this year’s Oscars.
LOS ANGELES:Â If Hollywood loves a breakout moment, this year it belongs to Geeta Gandbhir. Long respected within documentary circles, Gandbhir has suddenly become a mainstream name after scoring two Oscar nominations in the same season, one for a feature and one for a short. It is a rare feat. It is historic. And it has prompted one big question: who exactly is the filmmaker behind this double triumph?
Before stepping into the director’s chair, Gandbhir built her reputation as a razor-sharp editor. That technical grounding shaped her storytelling style, which is precise, unsentimental and emotionally direct. Her early career included working alongside Spike Lee, an apprenticeship that sharpened both her political lens and cinematic instincts.
Over the years, she accumulated multiple Emmy Awards and a Peabody, quietly becoming one of the most respected nonfiction voices in American television.
Her feature-length nominee, The Perfect Neighbor, released on Netflix, investigates the fatal shooting of Ajike Owens through stark police body-cam footage. The film strips away dramatic embellishment and instead relies on unfiltered visual evidence to confront viewers with uncomfortable truths.
At the same time, her short film The Devil Is Busy, streaming on HBO Max, offers an intimate, ground-level look inside an abortion clinic in Atlanta. Co-directed with Christalyn Hampton, it trades scale for immediacy and delivers impact in under an hour.
The contrast between the two projects, one investigative and expansive, the other intimate and observational, highlights Gandbhir’s range. Yet both share a common thread, which is a focus on lived reality rather than spectacle.
Documentary filmmaking is often seen as awards adjacent and respected but rarely spotlighted. Gandbhir’s dual nomination changes that narrative. It positions her not just as a contender, but as a defining nonfiction voice of her generation.
Whether she takes home one statuette or two, the achievement itself has already reshaped the Oscar conversation and cemented her place in film history.
