Vidya Balan, Ekta Kapoor among 395 new invitees to The Academy, will be able to vote for the Oscars

Vidya Balan, Ekta Kapoor, and Shobha Kapoor are among the 395 film industry personalities who’ve been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the governing body behind the Oscars.

Vidya Balan was recognised for her performances in Tumhari Sulu and Kahaani. Ekta Kapoor has been recognised for Dream Girl and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, while her mother Shobha has been recognised for Udta Punjab and The Dirty Picture.

Other actors who’ve been invited to join The Academy include Robert Pattinson, Laverne Cox, Vanessa Kirby, Steven Yeun, and others. The directors who’ve been invited include Cathy Yan, Jonathan Glazer, and more.

The 2021 class, according to Variety, is made up of 46% women, 39% underrepresented ethnic/racial communities and 53% international from 50 countries.

Eight people have been invited to join multiple branches of the Academy. These include Leslie Odom Jr, Florian Zeller, Shaka King, Alexander Nanau, Emerald Fennell, Lee Isaac Chung, Craig Brewer, and Kaouther Ben Hania.

The Academy has been in the midst of sweeping change, mostly around inclusivity and diversity. The changes were introduced after harsh criticism that most of the Academy’s voting body is Caucasian, causing an internal bias in the voting process for the Oscars.

Also read: Vidya Balan on whether she was offered Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2: ‘Let’s just say I am not in the film’

Vidya was most recently seen in director Amit Masurkar’s Sherni, which released on Amazon Prime Video. Other Indian stars who have been invited to join the Academy and vote in the Oscars in the past include Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Irrfan Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Salman Khan and filmmakers Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta.