Oscars 2017: Breaking down barriers after race row

There's a buzz in Hollywood about the possibility of Moonlight emerging as the film to beat La La Land to best picture on Sunday.

If the film - or its director Barry Jenkins - beat Damien Chazelle's favourite La La Land, it would quite an achievement, and following the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, a poignant win too.

Moonlight, a moving, low-budget indie about a gay black boy from a poor neighbourhood in Miami, is up for eight Oscars this weekend.

It's a film that in the past, might have been overlooked.

Jenkins told Sky News he is pleased to shine a light on a community with no voice.

"I think people have sought out the film as a very honest depiction of a certain version of the American life... this version isn't given a voice very often," he said.

British actress Naomie Harris, perhaps best known for Bond, admits she was hesitant to take on the role of the crack addict mum.

"I'd always said that I wanted to use my career to portray positive images of women because I felt that my mother is an incredibly inspiration woman in my life, I grew up in a community of very strong, intelligent capable women but I didn't see them reflected on screen," she said.

Moonlight is one of a handful of films with majority black casts this year.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis are both widely expected to win for their roles in Fences.

And Hidden Figures is breaking barriers too. It's up for three Oscars and knocked Rogue One: A Star Wars Story off the top spot in America, taking $60m (£48m) in its opening 10 days at the box office.

Variety magazine's Steven Gaydos says it's a marked turnaround.

"You go from a year where there's no participation, to this wondrous diversity that reflects not only a healthier industry but it reflects an industry that is not as limited, it's not as tightly focuses as it was."

:: Oscars 2017: Full list of nominations

Last year's ceremony was overshadowed by the #OscarsSoWhite race row. Director Spike Lee, actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her actor husband Will Smith all shunned the ceremony.

After two years of entirely white nominees in the acting categories the Academy was forced to respond, bringing in 683 new members in an effort to diversify.

It seems to have taken effect as this year, there are nods for seven non-white actors including British actor Dev Patel who won the best supporting actor BAFTA for his role in Lion.

Femi Oguns, an agent who runs multicultural acting school Identity, says the change needs to continue and come from those financing films to take more risks.

"There are a lot of casting directors that really fight the cause of diversifying the programmes they work on, it's really to do with the people above that, the producers, the ones that don't have as much faith and belief that if they did cast a diverse cast it won't lose them any sort of revenue on the back ends," he said.

:: You can watch the Oscars ceremony exclusively on Sky Cinema from 11pm on Sunday and news of the winners live from Hollywood on Sky News from 6am Monday morning.