Diego Luna to Host Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards – Film News in Brief

Diego Luna is set to host the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Scientific and Technical Awards on April 29.

The “Andor” actor and executive producer will present 14 achievements at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In addition to reprising his role as Cassian Andor from “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” in the upcoming “Andor” Season 2, he received a Golden Globe nomination for the limited series “La Máquina” and has appeared in “Y Tu Mamá También,” “Frida,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Narcos: Mexico” and the upcoming “Kiss of the Spider Man” alongside Jennifer Lopez, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

In addition to his acting work, Luna has also directed several films, including “Cesar Chavez” and “Mr. Pig,” and co-founded the Mexican production company La Corriente del Golfo.

The 14 achievements receiving Scientific and Technical Awards, represented by 37 individual recipients, have demonstrated a record of added value to the motion picture industry. They will also be presented with an Academy Award of Merit as a recognition to individuals who have developed or supported captioning technology in film.

Scientific and Engineering Award honorees include Jayson Dumenigo for the development of the Action Factory Hydrogels aimed at fire stunt safety; Thijs Vogels, Fabrice Rousselle, David Adler, Gerhard Röthlin and Mark Meyer, for the creation of Disney’s ML (machine learning) Denoiser, which has been adopted for animation and CGI; and Nir Averbuch, Yair Chuchem and Dan Raviv for Sound Radix’s Auto Align Post 2 for blending of multiple moving microphones during postproduction.

In a previously released joint statement, Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said: “As part of the Academy’s mission to celebrate artistry and innovation in filmmaking, we are honored to recognize the exceptional contributions of this year’s Scientific and Technical Awards recipients.”

Previous hosts include Natasha Lyonne, Margot Robbie, Jason Segel, Patrick Stewart, David Oyelowo, John Cho, Leslie Mann and Nia DaCosta.