By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
The 2021 Academy Awards have been moved two months later than usual to April 25, extending the entire awards season to eight long months. Movies are eligible for the 2021 Oscars—as well as numerous other awards (some critics’ organizations, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, etc.)—if released between January 1, 2020 and the end of February, 2021. Due to the pandemic, however, film activity in 2020 was a disaster, in the form of hampered or canceled productions or hobbled or non-existent cinema releases. Movie theaters all over the U.S. have been either completely shuttered (most ironically in the case of Los Angeles, the world’s entertainment capital) or placed on reduced capacity due to social distancing. As a result, there is not only a backlog of new movies being pushed back for release (e.g., the latest Bond movie, No Time to Die, was just delayed to October), but many films are skipping theaters altogether, instead premiering on streaming platforms.
