A diamond anniversary just doesn’t happen every year. It’s one of those momentous occasions that inevitably makes you think back and take stock.
In the case of the Golden Globes, it’s a long view, down through the years, back through color and black and white, almost like peering into a faded newsreel to the golden age of Hollywood and to a darker time as well. Back in 1944 when a group of foreign correspondents first banded together to form our association, the fortunes of World War 2 were just beginning to turn. The allies landed in Normandy and fierce fighting raged in the Pacific Theater, the world was still ravaged by the global conflict.

In 1944, correspondents Nora Laing, Frederick Porges and other founding members of what would become the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

hfpa archives

Through those years, Hollywood conducted its own war effort, churning out patriotic fare but also the images that fired the imaginations and aspirations of people worldwide – cinema marked the rise of a truly global culture. Entire generations of post-war filmmakers in Europe, Asia, and Latin America were inspired by the magic art made by the studios. The founding members of the HFPA, who wrote about the movies for their home countries in a time when filing a story sometimes meant driving the copy to the airport and flying it back with a passenger flight, intuited their importance for the world in furthering understanding in a time of global strife. The Golden Globe Awards were conceived to celebrate movies and their growing importance the world over.
Since then global media has grown alongside Hollywood itself. Today we live in a world which is inextricably connected, though by no means rid of strife. In this world, international territories have collectively surpassed the domestic market for Hollywood films, and marvelous movies are being produced the world over (we should know, we have the privilege of screening more than 80 every year, which qualify for the Foreign Language Golden Globe). Television has risen to its own Golden Age, movies magically stream through cyberspace to the myriad screens that surround us. As the media landscape changes, studios have fallen – and newspapers too. Through it all, we at the HFPA remain convinced of the importance of filmed entertainment as a global art form and committed to celebrating it for at least another 75 years.

In 1994, actress Hsu Feng and director Chen Kaige with the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Motion Picture Farewell, My Concubine, alongside presenter Juliette Lewis at the 51st Golden Globe Awards.

hfpa archives

The three-quarters of a century of Globes so far are a map of the movies and TV shows which have made us – all of us, of all colors and creeds – dream and cry, and still, do so even as some would have us turn back to the sirens of division.
The HFPA is celebrating that history with a series of special events and initiatives. We started in September when HFPA voters awarded the first-ever Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF. We celebrated with a 75th-anniversary reception at the Venice Festival, with a cycle of films restored thanks to the HFPA support at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, and with the Game Changers Panel at the Paley Center for Media which, on that occasion, added all Golden Globe Award broadcasts to its archive. Next, we will host a symposium on Women in Hollywood at UCLA and première a special 75^th Anniversary Special which will air on NBC on December 13.
And here on the website, we will be looking back with special content: features, articles, videos, and galleries.
All leading up of course the 75^th Golden Globe Awards on January 7, 2018.
We can only imagine what the next 75 years will bring.