Tequila lubricated the great night in which Hollywood did not want to talk about Donald Trump. The drink flowed with abundance in the four levels of Dolby, where the world film industry was gathered. The bars are the only refuge at the slow step of the ceremonies time. There Adrien Brody was installed several minutes, camouflaged under a huge vase with his mother and partner. They returned to the theater when The Brutalist He won the award better for the best photograph and minutes before the protagonist of the film collected again, 22 years later, the award for best actor. “If the past teaches us something is that we cannot miss hate. Let’s fight for what is correct, ”Brody said on the stage in which he was one of the political flashes of the night with what the filmmakers of No Other Landthe documentary on the occupation of Palestine.
First it happened with The pianistwhich gave Brody his first Oscar. Now repeat the award with another film linked to the Holocaust. His character, Lászlo Toth, a Jewish architect, leaves Hungary to begin his life in the United States. The film is a monument to the foundations of the American sleep in the postwar period. And a story that underlines how immigrants have helped build this country.
That was something that also stopped Saldaña, by collecting the award for Best Actress of Distribution for Emilia Pérez. “I am a proud daughter of parents who migrated with dreams, dignity and very hardworking hands,” said the actress, who became the first with Dominican roots that an Oscar wins.
The speeches were only shy brushstrokes in Donald Trump’s new era. The president returned to the White House to boost an offensive against migrants, redouble his commitment to his nationalist agenda, destroy Joe Biden’s legacy and an international policy that has turned the United States into an unpredictable ally and in which one cannot be trusted.
Hollywood remained virtually silent before this barrage of Trump 2.0. In the first four years of his government, on the other hand, the Academy Awards were the platform for combative speeches and calling action. On Sunday, however, the great crusade was flagged by Sean Baker, the winner of the night with four of the five awards that his film won, Aor. The independent filmmaker took advantage of his various visits to the stage to defend the legacy of movies and film rooms at the time of the reign of digital platforms. His speech was very applauded among his colleagues.
“I suppose the Americans are excited that finally someone dares to face a Russian with power,” joked Conan O’Brien, the comedian who led the gala, about the triumphs of Aor. The joke caused shouts of surprise and was one of the most cheered inside the theater.
Brazilian euphoria
Sometimes the seconds offered by the Academy to thank the winners are not enough. “I wanted to end with ‘Long live democracy, dictatorship never again’. I wrote it, but I didn’t find it in my pocket and I had to improvise, ”Walter Salles told this newspaper after the ceremony. The director won the first international film Oscar for Brazil by I’m still here. He did it 27 years after being first nominated with Central Station. “The film does not exist alone, she is pregnant with others. There is a tradition about the cinema of the dictatorship in Argentina, Chile or Spain. And somehow they are in my film and affective memory. I see it as a prize for Brazilian culture, but also for Latin American culture, ”said Salles.
Between bambaline, there was no joy like that of the Brazilians, who have finally achieved the statuette after five nominations in the category, the first one in 1962 by Promise payer. The award comes with I’m still herea film about the Brazilian dictatorship in which Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Pavia, the wife of a congressman kidnapped in 1971.
“This is a prize we really wanted,” Torres said minutes after the gala. The actress, nominated for her interpretation of Pavia, says that the triumph can be a balm for a polarized society like the Brazilian. “This film has changed things in real life. This aggressively binary form of seeing things has changed, a vision that has crushed us, ”he said.
“Today (for Sunday) it is carnival in Brazil. People are drunk in the streets and is a bit like winning the World Cup, ”said actress Alice Braga, who merged into an euphoric hug with towers while the rest of the team took selfies With the statuette. Braga believes that I’m still herewhich has led more than five million people to the rooms of their country, explains to the younger generations what society suffered with the dictatorship. “It is very important for our cinema after Bolsonaro, without investment for the industry and with many attacks on the creators. Seeing Walter be celebrated is very exciting, ”he said.