Oscars 2018 – A World of Difference or same old story…?

There may not have been much colour on the winning podium (or among the nominees) but perhaps the industry is waking up…

THERE was no Oscar glory for Kumail Nanjiani in the best original screenplay category for his semi-autobiographical ‘The Big Sick’ – but the award did go to another person of colour – Jordan Peele.

His highly original movie, ‘Get Out’, which he also directed, features British actor Daniel Kaluuya in the lead role. Kaluuya plays an African-American in a relationship with a white woman and when he visits her parent’s home he has reasons to believe they are not that best pleased.

Peele, speaking to the press afterwards (pictured above), said he almost never became a director, simply because there were not enough role models for him to follow. He referred to the current wave of black filmmakers as a ‘renaissance’.

Kaluuya, nominated in the actor in a leading role category, lost out to fellow Brit Gary Oldman for his role as Winston Churchill in ‘The Darkest Hour’.

The best director Oscar went to the Mexican-born Guillermo del Toro who made an impassioned plea for more stories to emerge from the margins. His ‘Shape of Water’ features a mute woman (British) Sally Hawkins falling in love with a strange and giant creature of the sea.

Toro touched on the issue of immigration in his acceptance speech, and said that filmmaking helped to erase difference and suspicion.

“I am an immigrant like Alfonso (Cuarón) and Alejandro (González Iñárritu), my compadres. Like Gael (García Bernal), like Salma (Hayek) and like many, many of you.

“And in the last 25 years, I’ve been living in a country all of our own. Part of it is here, part of it is in Europe, part of it is everywhere. Because I think that the greatest thing our art does and our industry does is to erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.”

It was one of the themes of the evening along with tolerance, diversity, standing up to discrimination, inequality and sexual harassment. The long and dark shadow of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein hung over the evening but unlike the Baftas and the Golden Globes, stars did not don black to display their support of #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns.

However, Frances McDormand who won the lead actress award for ‘Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’ got all the women nominated to stand up during her acceptance speech. She called for producers to listen to women and their stories and promoted an ‘inclusion rider’ – where filmmakers vow to make films which represent the world around them.

Indeed.

* Indian stars Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi were recognised in the ‘In Memoriam’ section.
* Below full list of winners and nominees

Picture and quotes courtesy of: A.M.P.A.S publicity department

On our way to an Oscar viewing party. pic.twitter.com/4NRxREEKa9

— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) March 4, 2018

The full list of winners

Best picture
Winner: The Shape of Water
Nominees
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Director
Winner: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro
Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan
Get Out, Jordan Peele
Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig
Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson

Actor in a Leading Role
Winner: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Timothée Chalamet
Daniel Day-Lewis
Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya

Lead actress
Winner: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Supporting actor
Winner: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Supporting actress
Winner: Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Adapted screenplay
Winner: Call Me by Your Name, James Ivory
The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Logan, Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin
Mudbound, Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Original screenplay
Winner: Get Out, Jordan Peele
The Big Sick, Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig
The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh

Animated feature
Winner: Coco, Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson
The Boss Baby, Tom McGrath, Ramsey Ann Naito
The Breadwinner, Nora Twomey, Anthony Leo
Ferdinand, Carlos Saldanha
Loving Vincent, Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Sean Bobbitt, Ivan Mactaggart, Hugh Welchman

Animated short
Winner: Dear Basketball, Glen Keane, Kobe Bryant
Garden Party, Victor Caire, Gabriel Grapperon
Lou, Dave Mullins, Dana Murray
Negative Space, Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata
Revolting Rhymes, Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer

Cinematography
Winner: Blade Runner 2049, Roger Deakins
Darkest Hour, Bruno Delbonnel
Dunkirk, Hoyte van Hoytema
Mudbound, Rachel Morrison
The Shape of Water, Dan Laustsen

Best documentary feature
Winner: Icarus, Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan
Abacus Small Enough to Jail, Steve James, Mark Mitten, Julie Goldman
Faces Places, JR, Agnès Varda, Rosalie Varda
Last Men in Aleppo, Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed, Soren Steen Jepersen
Strong Island, Yance Ford, Joslyn Barnes

Best documentary short subject
Winner: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405, Frank Stiefel
Edith+Eddie, Laura Checkoway, Thomas Lee Wright
Heroin(e), Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Kerrin Sheldon
Knife Skills, Thomas Lennon
Traffic Stop, Kate Davis, David Heilbroner

Best live action short film
Winner: The Silent Child, Chris Overton, Rachel Shenton
DeKalb Elementary, Reed Van Dyk
The Eleven O’Clock, Derin Seale, Josh Lawson
My Nephew Emmett, Kevin Wilson, Jr.
Watu Wote/All of Us, Katja Benrath, Tobias Rosen

Best foreign language film
Winner: A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
The Insult (Lebanon)
Loveless (Russia)
On Body and Soul (Hungary)
The Square (Sweden)

Film editing
Winner: Dunkirk, Lee Smith
Baby Driver, Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
I, Tonya, Tatiana S. Riegel
The Shape of Water, Sidney Wolinsky
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Jon Gregory

Sound editing
Winner: Dunkirk, Alex Gibson, Richard King
Baby Driver, Julian Slater
Blade Runner 2049, Mark Mangini, Theo Green
The Shape of Water, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira
Star Wars The Last Jedi, Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood

Sound mixing
Winner: Dunkirk, Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo
Baby Driver, Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin
Blade Runner 2049, Mac Ruth, Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill
The Shape of Water, Glen Gauthier, Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern
Star Wars The Last Jedi, Stuart Wilson, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick

Production design
Winner: The Shape of Water, Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau
Beauty and the Beast, Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer
Blade Runner 2049, Dennis Gassner, Alessandra Querzola
Darkest Hour, Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
Dunkirk, Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis

Original score
Winner: The Shape of Water, Alexandre Desplat
Dunkirk, Hans Zimmer
Phantom Thread, Jonny Greenwood
Star Wars The Last Jedi, John Williams
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Carter Burwell

Original song
Winner: ‘Remember Me’ from Coco, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
‘Mighty River’ from Mudbound, Mary J. Blige
‘Mystery of Love’ from Call Me by Your Name, Sufjan Stevens
‘Stand Up for Something’ from Marshall, Diane Warren, Common
‘This Is Me’ from The Greatest Showman, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul

Makeup and hairWinner: Darkest Hour, Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, Lucy Sibbick
Victoria and Abdul, Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard
Wonder, Arjen Tuiten

Costume design
Winner: Phantom Thread, Mark Bridges
Beauty and the Beast, Jacqueline Durran
Darkest Hour, Jacqueline Durran
The Shape of Water, Luis Sequeira
Victoria and Abdul, Consolata Boyle

Visual effects
Winner: Blade Runner 2049, John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover, Gerd Nefzer
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, Dan Sudick
Kong: Skull Island, Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, Mike Meinardus
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Chris Corbould, Neal Scanlan
War for the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Joel Whist