Oscars: Film Academy Splits Its Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Into Two

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ nearly 10,000 members each belong to one of 18 branches. One of those branches, the short films and feature animation branch, is about to become two, a short films branch and a feature animation branch, the organization announced on Monday.

The move is the result of a vote by the Academy’s board of governors. It’s not yet clear what brought about the split, although members of the sizable feature animation community have long resented the fact that most, if not all, of the branch’s three governors have often been short filmmakers.

The board of governors is currently made up of 55 people, a massive number that can sometimes make for unwieldy decision-making. The Academy offered an assurance on Monday that the size of the board will not grow with the addition of a 19th branch: starting with the 2024-2025 season, the animation branch, to which approximately 700 Academy members will belong, will be represented by two governors, and the short films branch, to which some 200 members will belong, will be represented by one.

Though the Academy currently presents three awards for short films, two of them will be governed by branches other than the short films branch: the best documentary short nominees will continue to be determined by the documentary branch and the best animated short nominees will be determined by the animation branch, whereas best live action short nominees will fall under the purview of the short films branch.

“The Academy is dedicated to advancing and evolving with our growing global membership and with the film industry,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy president Janet Yang said in a statement. “Creating distinct identities for these unique and vital components of our cinema community is part of this needed progress.”

“As both the Academy’s shorts and animation communities have grown, and to ensure they continue to thrive, the need for two individual branches became increasingly apparent,” added the current governors of the short films and feature animation branch, Bonnie Arnold, Jinko Gotoh and Marlon West. “We’re excited about the future of these two branches and thank our fellow governors for their support.”

It’s all something of a return to the way things used to be. Indeed, the Academy created a short subjects branch in 1941, back when short films preceded feature films in many theaters. That branch was renamed the short films branch in 1974, and then, with the rise of computer animation, in 1995 became the short films and feature animation branch.