Academy Board Elects Five First-Time Governors

The results are in after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held elections for 17 seats on its 55-person board of governors, and the newly-constituted board will include five rookies, one comeback-kid and 11 continuing incumbents.

The five first-time governors will be Patricia Cardoso (directors branch), a 1996 Student Academy Award winner best known for helming 2002’s Real Women Have Curves, who will succeed Susanne Bier; Jennifer Fox (producers), an Oscar nominee for Michael Clayton and five-time producer of the Academy’s Governors Awards, who will succeed Jennifer Todd; K.K. Barrett (production design), an Oscar nominee for Her, who will succeed Tom Duffield; Andy Nelson (sound), a 24-time Oscar nominee who has taken home statuettes for Saving Private Ryan and Les Misérables, who will succeed Gary C. Bourgeois; and Chris Tashima (short films), an Oscar winner for the live action short Visas and Virtue, who becomes the first governor of the short films branch.

The long-unified short films and feature animation branch, which had three seats on the board, was recently split by the board into two separate branches, with the former allocated one seat and the latter two seats. This election cycle, one of the incumbent governors of the unified branch — Bonnie Arnold, who now belongs to the animation branch — was required by board rules to take a two-year hiatus from the board, having now completed two three-year terms, so the board did not hold an election to replace her.

Bier, Todd and Duffield, having also now completed two three-year terms, were also required by that board rule to take a two-year hiatus; Bourgeois, meanwhile, ran for re-election but was defeated.

Returning to the board following a mandated two-year hiatus is former board vice president Lois Burwell (makeup artists/hairstylists), an Oscar winner for Braveheart, who will fill the seat previously occupied by Bill Corso, who also was required to take a two-year hiatus.

The 11 incumbents reelected to the board are Rita Wilson (actors), Kim Taylor-Coleman (casting directors), Paul Cameron (cinematographers), Eduardo Castro (costume designers), Jean Tsien (documentary), Pam Abdy (executives), Terilyn A. Shropshire (film editors), Laura C. Kim (marketing/public relations), Lesley Barber (music), Brooke Breton (visual effects) and Howard A. Rodman (writers).

The incumbents whose seats on the board did not come up for a vote this cycle are Wendy Aylsworth (production/technology), Dion Beebe (cinematographers), Howard Berger (makeup artists/hairstylists), Jason Blum (producers), Rob Bredow (visual effects), Ruth E. Carter (costume designers), Megan Colligan (marketing/public relations), Paul Debevec (visual effects), Peter Devlin (sound), David I. Dinerstein (marketing/public relations), Ava DuVernay (directors), Linda Flowers (makeup artists/hairstylists), Charles Fox (music), DeVon Franklin (at-large), Rodrigo García (directors), Richard Gibbs (music), Donna Gigliotti (executives), Jinko Gotoh (feature animation), Chris Hegedus (documentary), Richard Hicks (casting directors), Lynette Howell Taylor (producers), Kalina Ivanov (production designers), Simon Kilmurry (documentary), Ellen Kuras (cinematographers), Marlee Matlin (actors), Hannah Minghella (executives), Daniel Orlandi (costume designers), Missy Parker (production designers), Lou Diamond Phillips (actors), Jason Reitman (directors), Nancy Richardson (film editors), Stephen Rivkin (film editors), Eric Roth (writers), Dana Stevens (writers), Mark P. Stoeckinger (sound), Marlon West (feature animation), Janet Yang (at-large) and Debra Zane (casting directors).

As a result of this election, the board is now 53 percent female and 27 percent non-white.