The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts the biggest party in Hollywood every year disguised as an awards show, announced several changes to Golden Globes eligibility rules that will kick in for the upcoming awards season. The organization also announced important dates for Hollywood to keep in mind.
HFPA president Theo Kingma told The Hollywood Reporter that their committees had trouble making the biggest change, which affects animated movies. The new rules come up with a new definition of “animation” that some purists might debate about.
From now on, the motion-capture films that Robert Zemeckis championed for several years like The Polar Express or A Christmas Carol would not be considered animated by the HFPA. From now on, an animated film must be made using 2d hand-drawn animation, stop-motion or CGI.
According to TheWrap, the animated feature category will now also include animated films of all languages, not just those in English. However, this means that foreign-language animated films won’t be eligible for the foreign language film award. (For example, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises was up for foreign language film last year, but it would be eligible for animated feature this year.)
The HFPA has also banned foreign language films from the Best Picture - Musical/Comedy and Best Picture - Drama categories. However, they can compete in other categories outside of foreign language film.
On the TV side, miniseries has been cut and will now be known as “limited series,” to reflect shows like Fargo and True Detective. These anthology shows are more than one season, but each season features new casts and new storylines.
The Golden Globe nominees will be announced on Dec. 11 and the 72nd Annual Golden Globes ceremony will take place on Jan. 11.
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