Jacqueline Stewart to lead Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer

Film scholar Jacqueline Stewart has been named the next director and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

The organization’s board of trustees said Wednesday that Stewart, who previously served as the museum’s chief artistic and programming officer, would succeed Bill Kramer to guide the vision of the museum beginning July 18.

“Jacqueline Stewart is the ideal choice to lead the Academy Museum into the future,” said Ted Sarandos, the chair of the Academy Museum’s Board of Trustees and co-CEO of Netflix. “A strong and inspiring partner to Bill Kramer throughout the period leading up to our opening, she gave indispensable direction to the curatorial program that has been so widely admired.”

Kramer last week was named as the new CEO for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that puts on the Oscars.

Stewart is a Chicago native and a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellow known for her contributions to film studies and advocacy for film preservation. Among her many accomplishments, Stewart is the author of the book “Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity,” hosts “Silent Sunday Nights” on Turner Classic Movies and is a chair of the National Film Preservation Board.

In her previous role at the Academy Museum, she led strategy and planning for its curatorial, educational and public programming initiatives from exhibitions to screenings to podcasts. The museum opened last year and will celebrate its first anniversary in September.

“Our ambition in opening the Academy Museum was to give Los Angeles and the world an unprecedented institution for understanding and appreciating the history and culture of cinema, in all its artistic glory and all its power to influence and reflect society,” Stewart said in a statement. “I feel deeply honored to have been chosen for this new role.”