Host Chris Rock opened the ceremony with a battery of jokes, most of which centered around the controversy over the lack of diversity in this year’s nominations.
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Mad Max: Fury Road is expected to be showered with Oscars. The journalism drama won the Oscar for the best original screenplay.
He heaped praise on his wife – Margaret Sixel – who picked up the gong for Film Editing. It was “Mad Max: Fury Road” making most of the early noise, with six wins including Sound Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Costume Design.
Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, “The Danish Girl“.
However, Indian-American Pixar artist Sanjay Patel’s animated short “Sanjay’s Super Team”, which tells the story of an immigrant community and “a family of colour”, lost the Oscar to Chilean film “Bear Story”.
Dozens of protesters converged near the Oscars venue on Sunday holding signs with slogans such as “Hollywood Must Do Better” as stars walked the industry’s most celebrated red carpet. “I said that’s precisely why you have to do the movie”.
Turns out that a revenant was named best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards after all. “The last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart”.
“The Revenant” leads all films with 12 nominations and is considered the front-runner for best picture.
Talk of the presidential election was otherwise largely absent the ceremony, though Vice-President Joe Biden (whose presence added even greater security to the Dolby Theatre) was met by a standing ovation before talking about sexual assault on college campuses before introducing best-song nominee Lady Gaga. The Best Original Score was awarded to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.
The 88th Academy Awards have been steeped in controversy over their overwhelmingly white nominees – triggering #OscarsSoWhite and calls for a boycott.
The prize for best song ultimately though went to British singer Sam Smith. Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who won in the Documentary Short category for A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, said her film – which is about honor killings in Pakistan – showed the power of “determined women [working] together” and that it convinced the country’s prime minister to change the law.
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“I also knew just how good she was, and I turned out to be right in this case!” As far as entertainment goes, this Oscars will be the one to beat in coming years. “Here I am, representing a movie I feel so particularly proud of”.
