Academy board continues makeover with 11 new governors

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, documentary filmmaker Simon Kilmurry and writer Dana Stevens are among 11 film professionals who have been elected to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors, the Academy announced Thursday.

Those new governors are part of a widespread makeover of the AMPAS board spurred by new term limits imposed last year. In 10 of the 11 powers where governors were elected for the first time, incumbent governors were barred from running again because of those new limits, which restrict governors to two consecutive three-year terms. Last year, when those limits were instituted, 10 governors were removed from the board and 12 governors were elected for the first time.

This year’s election means that 23 of the 55 board members will be in their first or second terms.

In all 18 branches of the Academy, the six incumbent governors who were eligible to run again were reelected. Those are Debra Zane (Casting Directors Branch), Ava DuVernay (Directors Branch), Steven Rivkin (Film Editors Branch), Linda Flowers (Makeup & Hairstylist Branch), Lynette Howell Taylor (Producers Branch) and Rob Bredow (Visual Effects Branch).

In addition to Phillips, Kilmurry and Stevens, the first-time governors elected are Daniel Orlandi (Costume Designers), Hannah Minghella (Executives), David I. Dinerstein (Marketing and Public Relations), Richard Gibbs (Music), Kalina Ivanov (Design Director), Jinko Gotoh (Animated Shorts and Feature Films) and Mark P. Stoeckinger (Sound).

Cinematographer Ellen Kuras returned to the board after a break. Wendy Aylsworth was elected as the first governor of the new Manufacturing and Technology Branch.

For the 2023-2024 term, the board will be comprised of 26 men and 29 women, 14 of whom are from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. The number of women is two away from the record of 31 in the 2021-2022 table.

The governors who had to leave the board due to term limits were actor Whoopi Goldberg, cinematographer Mandy Walker, costume designer Isis Mussenden, documentary editor Kate Amend, executive David Linde, marketing executive Christina Kounelias, composer Charles Bernstein, production designer Wynn Thomas, short filmmaker. Jon Bloom, sound designer Teri Dornan and writer Larry Karaszewski. All are eligible to run again after a two-year hiatus except Bernstein and Bloom, who are permanently off the board because they’ve passed the new lifetime maximum of 12 years.

Each of the Academy’s 18 branches is represented by three governors, except for the new Production and Technology Branch, which has one. Governors serve staggered three-year terms, with one seat from each branch up for election each year.

Incumbent governors remaining on the board and not running for election this year are Pam Abdy, Bonnie Arnold, Lesley Barber, Dion Beebe, Howard Berger, Susanne Bier, Jason Blum, Gary C. Bourgeois, Brooke Breton, Paul Cameron, Ruth E. Carter, Eduardo Castro, Megan Colligan, Bill Corso, Paul Debevec, Peter Devlin, Tom Duffield, Charles Fox, DeVon Franklin, Rodrigo Garcia, Donna Gigliotti, Chris Hegedus, Richard Hicks, Laura C. Kim, Marlee Matlin, Missy Parker, Jason Reitman, Nancy Richardson, Howard A. Rodman, Eric Roth, Terilyn A. Shropshire, Kim Taylor-Coleman, Jennifer Todd, Jean Tsien, Marlon West, Rita Wilson, and Janet Yang.

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