By Olav Rokne: Recently, JJ, Chris Barkley, and Kevin Standee helped me refine a motion that I intend to present at the next WSFS business meeting. The motion is in support of extending the eligibility of the movie Prospect, which was eligible for the 2019 nomination season, but was largely unavailable to most viewers until just over a month ago. It’s a low-budget SFF movie that I think really deserves attention from the fandom community. Getting this a Hugo nod would help it reach the wider audience that it thoroughly deserves.
Here’s the motion:
Short Title: Hugo Eligibility Extension for Prospect
Moved, to extend for one year the eligibility of the movie Prospect, based on limited availability, as authorized by Section 3.4.3 of the WSFS Constitution.
Proposed by: Olav Rokne, Marshall Boyd, Amanda Wakaruk, Chris M. Barkley
Commentary: The American film Prospect had its global premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 5, 2018. There were a very limited number of theatrical screenings in large American cities in November of 2018.
Prospect was released on video-on-demand and home media on March 8, 2019.
Due to its limited release in 2018 and early 2019, very few members of Worldcon 76 or Dublin 2019 had the opportunity to view the film before the deadline for nominating the 2019 Hugo Awards.
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Mike has reproduced the entirety of an e-mail that I sent him about the motion, and when I see it in the context of this blog post, I think it implies something that I did not intend to imply.
While Kevin and JJ did help me improve the language of the motion (for which I am very grateful), neither of them have endorsed this, and I would not want to give anyone the impression that they have.
I had not heard of Prospect before this, and I have not yet gotten to see it (though I found the trailer intriguing). But I do support this request for an extension, because if a WSFS member feels strongly enough about a work to take on the Business Meeting, then they obviously feel the work is worthy of consideration by Hugo nominators. 🙂
Scott Glassgold (the producer of Prospect) sent me the following note when he learned about this proposed WSFS motion:
“We’ve always wanted this to be considered for the Hugo. We have so much respect for the award.”
Smaller SFF movies like Prospect or Claire Denis’ High Life, which is a similar case, often fall through the cracks because of festival runs, limited releases, etc…, so I’m glad to see this motion.