Cheryl Boone Isaacs accepted the Pioneer of the Year honor at CinemaCon’s Will Rogers Motion Picture Foundation Dinner, held Wednesday. The President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the fourth woman and first African American person to ever be named Pioneer of the Year, according to Deadline. Isaacs was presented the award by David Oyelowo (“Selma,” “A United Kingdom”).
The event — which raised about $1.1 million in proceeds — featured a number of honored guests singing Isaacs’ praises. “Her leadership, wisdom, tireless service, and immense contributions to the entire film community are the epitome of why this award was established,” Twentieth Century Fox president of distribution Chris Aronson stressed.
In a videotaped tribute, Steven Spielberg gushed, “Cheryl is one of only three women who have held [the position of President], so Cheryl, you have become a pioneer in your own right because you are the face and the voice of the Academy, and in these wildly unpredictable times you do it with such grace and such passion for movies that protects the Academy which has represented the gold standard for the arts and sciences of film for all of us.” Spielberg was referencing Fay Kanin and Bette Davis in his speech, the only other women Academy presidents.
As for Isaacs herself, she used her acceptance speech to highlight the importance of different experiences and empathy. “As Academy president I wanted to make sure our industry saw the value of diversity and inclusion. Yes, it is a personal thing for me as a woman, and as a woman of color,” she explained. “After all, the heart of moviegoing is perspective: Whose point of view is being represented, what do you see through the camera lens, who is behind the camera itself? We’re not growing if we’re not gaining perspective. We’re all stronger. Our art is more alive, our industry more innovative to fresh perspective, when we widen the lens.”
Currently in her fourth term as President, Isaacs previously discussed the Academy’s mission to be more inclusive at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. During her tenure, she has presided over three fairly controversial Oscars ceremonies. All of the acting nominations in 2015 and 2016 were for white actors, resulting in both events being referred to as #OscarSoWhite. And, although this year’s affair alleviated some of those concerns with a new record of nominations for people of color, 2017 will go down as another infamous year in Oscar history: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, prompted by Academy accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, mistakenly named “La La Land” as Best Picture instead of “Moonlight.”
