Can Dark Horses Survive Under the Oscars’ New International Voting System?

thewrap.com:

another Best Original Song nomination for a song from a movie that almost nobody has seen, “Tell It Like a Woman?” How many showbiz documentaries can advance to that shortlist?

Will the insanely over-the-top visual effects of “RRR” make it the first Indian film to advance in that race?But mostly, I’m wondering how this year’s new rules will impact the Best International Feature Film category and its 15-film shortlist, which will be announced on Dec.

21 along with all the other lists.In a change that has caused a lot of concern among voters and category strategists, the international category this year separated its voters into 11 different groups, and required voters to see every one of the eight or nine films in their assigned group in order for their ballot to count.(In the past, you had to see a minimum number of films, which was usually in double digits, but it was never mandatory to see everything in your group; voters had some leeway about what they could choose to view.)   And a couple of weeks after that rule was revealed, a second major change dropped when voters were told that instead of scoring each film as they’d done in the past, they would simply be asked to rank their top 15.The first of the rule changes does something very valuable: It makes sure that every one of the 92 eligible films will be watched by a reasonable number of voters.

Under the old rule, a voter could look at a group of, say, 18, watch the highest-profile films and then pick up a few more from other groups; there was little doubt that some films were watched by a lot more voters than others.