Oscar nominees furious on exclusion from telecast

Hollywood filmmakers like Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro and leading craftspeople have condemned a decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to hand out four awards during commercial breaks in the hope of trimming the shows run time.

Nominees and their colleagues from the commercial-banished categories of cinematography, make-up and hairstyling, film editing, and live action shorts slammed the decision in interviews and via heated posts on social media, as reported.

"I find it depressing that they are doing this. Hopefully it won't be like the part of the show where they play clips from the Sci-Tech awards dinner. That always feels a bit sad, like they didn't get invited to the real party," said cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, a nominee this year for 'Never Look Away'.

Deschanel has been nominated six times stretching back to 1983's 'The Right Stuff', but has yet to win. Filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, a multiple-nominee for producing, directing, writing and cinematography for 'Roma', criticized the Academy's decision.

"In the history of cinema, masterpieces have existed without sound, without colour, without a story, without actors and without music. No one single film has ever existed without cinematography and without editing," wrote Cuaron.

Three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki called it "an unfortunate decision". Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro said he "would not presume to suggest what categories to cut during the Oscars show but cinematography and editing are at the very heart of our craft". "They are not inherited from a theatrical tradition or a literary tradition. They are cinema itself," del Toro said.