A major change in its voting procedure was recently taken up by the FOIOA, with a decision to drop Public Voting from its procedures. The voting rounds to elect nominations and choose winners for various award categories would hence now be opened to the Jury members only. Additionally, the already existing provision to invite Guest Jury panellists each year was also terminated.
In order to account for these changes in voting criteria, FOIOA now aims to expand its small panel of Jury members to a larger community of film enthusiasts, and thus would be open to applications throughout the year, except for the months of final voting. All existing Jury members would continue with their memberships on the new panel, post re-registration. Also, for the first two years, all individuals who have served the FOIOA Jury in past (including the Guest panellists) would be offered direct memberships, on request and a formal registration.
Considering the above mentioned changes, the 6th FOIOA (scheduled for January, 2021) would be the first edition to decide winners based solely on the votes polled by the Jury. Among the previous five editions of FOIOA, the first two editions were announced solely based on the results of Public voting, while the remaining three editions have considered both, following different weight-age.
-Spokesperson
28th July, 2020