Son of IMAX exec snubbed for Oscars ‘In Memoriam’ gets ‘childish’ response when he raises it with Academy

The “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday’s Oscars may have earned praise for heartfelt tributes to big stars from Diane Keaton to Robert Redford, but several key figures were left out.

For Geoff Keighley, one stunning omission hit home: his father, David Keighley, an IMAX pioneer who served as the company’s first-ever Chief Quality Officer and oversaw post-production for more than 500 IMAX films.

Keighley, the host and creator of The Game Awards (often called the “Oscars of Gaming,” ironically), immediately called out The Academy for excluding his dad, tagging key members of AMPAS in his Instagram post.

By Monday he shared that AMPAS/Oscar CEO Bill Kramer seemingly blocked him on Instagram. “Getting blocked on Instagram by the CEO of the Academy was a childish and unprofessional response to a very sincere expression of grief and disappointment,” Keighley tells Page Six Hollywood exclusively.

“I was sitting with my mom last night, who is also a voting member of the Academy, and we were watching the segment on TV at her house. We never expected a huge tribute to my dad, but the fact he was excluded from even the quick double-up of names and faces was heartbreaking, especially after all he did for the medium of cinema,” Keighley added.

David (who was also a member of the Academy for over four decades) passed away last September at 77, following a battle with cancer. Upon his passing, he was lionized by major filmmakers including Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Denis Villeneuve and Francis Ford Coppola.

“I realize pulling together these montages is a thankless task and a hard needle to thread, but even the smallest in-show mention was more than appropriate and justified,” Keighley says. “Apparently there is a clandestine committee that decides on who to include in the broadcast. You have to wonder about the process, makeup of committee, and what information is used to evaluate merit. I do question if the committee was fully aware of his pivotal role, as the online AMPAS obituary refers to him as an ‘executive / film technician.’”

Other notable figures left out of the Oscars segment included Eric Dane, James Van Der Beek, Brigitte Bardot, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Robert Carradine, June Lockhart and Bud Cort.