On the surface, last year’s Oscar night that celebrated studio filmmaking with 7 richly-deserved Academy Awards won by “Oppenheimer” couldn’t have been more different than this year’s. Contrastingly, the 97th Academy Awards that took place at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater on Sunday had independent film at its heart through and through. Tying a record with Walt Disney as the filmmaker who won the most Oscars on one night (and setting a new record for collecting all those awards for the same movie), Sean Baker picked up 4 gold statues for his breathtaking “Anora” in Editing, Original Screenplay, Director, and Picture, with the film’s star Mikey Madison also picking up the Best Actress Oscar.
Separated by their major winners’ production budgets, one thing the two ceremonies had in common was the fact that their biggest victors—“Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan and Baker—have made it clear over the years that they will never accept anything other than a true theatrical release for their movies, despite an increasingly streaming-focused era. For the third year in a row, I was in the room at the Dolby Theater on Oscar night, navigating the mazy floors of the giant venue with a special press access wristband that allowed me to enter the orchestra-level spaces. Attending the Oscars is not something you take for granted, ever—you want to make the most of it when you’ve miraculously got the in on Hollywood’s biggest night. And that’s exactly what I intended to do once I got myself down to the lobby from my original seat (at the top, nose-bleed floor) and found an empty seat by the “Flow” team after the first commercial break. That is when I started to feel the night’s real temperatures.
In that, among the loudest cheers I heard in the ceremony came during Baker’s passionate acceptance speech when he picked up his Best Director Oscar. Like he did a week ago at the Independent Spirit Awards where he asked for a fairer deal for independent filmmakers, Baker put his award on the floor, and read a statement he’s thoughtfully prepared, calling for the continuation and restoration of the theatrical experience. “In a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. This is a communal experience you simply don’t get at home,” Baker said to a cheering audience. “If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture.”
He wasn’t the only person in the room standing up for traditional theatrical exhibition. The other one was the host himself, Conan O’Brien, who held the pulse of the room marvelously as one of this century’s most successful Oscar hosts. He joked that “CinemaStreams” could be a new concept where you’d watch a giant cellphone screen communally as a novel way of streaming movies. In his well-received bit, O’Brien both subtly (and not-so-subtly) critiqued the shortcomings of streaming and positioned the theatrical experience as a no-brainer way to watch movies.
The night’s other biggest cheers were for LAFD’s presence at the Oscars, a short few weeks after the devastating Los Angeles fires that altered the city forever. Earlier that night, Fire Captain Robert Hawkins told me it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him and his team to attend the Academy Awards. “What we do is our job, but I am very grateful that [we received an invite] to attend. Our hearts go out to the people that lost their homes. But it’s also been incredible to see LA come together and support the fire department,” he said.
On the whole, a pair of the night’s relatively surprising wins dialed up the energy in the room considerably. One of them was the victory the wonderous Latvian animated feature “Flow” pulled off, beating “The Wild Robot,” the more widely predicted winner of the evening, having won a number of major industry precursors. Among the team of artists of “Flow,” Dream Well Studio’s Pēteris Tenisons (whom I was briefly sitting next to) said, “We are a small team from a small country, and the whole journey had been a complete miracle,” shortly after the animation’s victory. “This is the first time we [Latvia] had won an Oscar. Our fans have been driving the overall buzz—if they notice us wearing cat shirts, they’ve been coming to us to congratulate us. We can’t comprehend all that’s been happening, and the best we can do now is to go with the flow.”
Another nominee going with the flow in his own way? Stop-motion animation “Memoir of a Snail” director Adam Elliot, proudly walking the red carpet with his exquisite film’s palm-sized star, Grace. The Oscar hopeful didn’t seem to focus too much on a win when he told me about his road to the Oscars. “I was here 21 years ago with “Harvey Krumpet,”” Elliot remarked about his Best Animated Short winner of 2004. “We were the underdogs against Disney, Pixar, and Fox. Even my mom said we weren’t going to win. And I’m just so thrilled to be here again.”
No Oscar moment this year—or frankly, this century—felt as vital and thunderous as the speeches that followed the Best Documentary win of “No Other Land,” made by a team of Palestinians and Israelis, about the displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. “About two months ago, I became a father,” said co-director Basel Adra, one of the film’s Palestinian co-directors. “And my hope is my daughter will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing settlers, violence, home demolitions and forcible displacements,” he continued. “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger,” said Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham, before rightfully accusing the US for blocking the path to a sound political solution that would protect both Israelis and Palestinians. What the cameras didn’t show was the film’s subjects Farisa Abu Aram and Kifah Adara exchanging a sincere moment in the aisles with the “Sugarcane” director Emily Kassie, who was sitting right in front of me at the time, and was enthusiastically applauding every moment of Adra and Abraham’s speeches.
Nearby were Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and their dog Frodo, the filmmakers and subjects of the Ukrainian documentary, “Porcelain War”—both about the country’s devastation by Russia, and art’s enduring power to generate pockets of hope. “Behind our movie is Ukrainians,” Leontyev said to me earlier that night during an off-the-cuff moment on the carpet. “The resistance and resilience of Ukrainian civilians. We have responsibility to them here and now. And we can’t just enjoy the ceremony without thinking of our country.” When I asked them about the recent press conference President Trump and Vice President JD Vance had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (an embarrassing moment for the US), “We are not ready to talk about this, not yet,” said Leontyev. “But we are here to share our movie. And our movie is about everyday people who defend democracy and preserve humanity. Resistance is possible for all.”
Having shown a form of resistance by making his movie in secret, Oscar nominated “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof reflected on how unbelievable it feels to him that this time last year, he still was shooting his film. “Our hope was to be able to finish the film, and we didn’t think about anything else. And we’re here after less than a year, and the film is at the stage of having more viewers.” The film’s lead actor Missagh Zareh (who plays an increasingly unhinged patriarch who puts his wife and daughters through hell) added, “I myself have thought this—and Mohammad also believes it—art is supposed to make the world better. And when something like this [nomination] happens, you get the confirmation that art may be able to make the world a better place.”
Elsewhere in the ceremony, best international feature nominee “Emilia Pérez” had a relatively quiet night (apart from “El Mal” winning Best Song, and Zoe Saldaña’s richly deserved Best Supporting Actress victory), with only one safe O’Brien joke about the number of times Karla Sofía Gascon’s publicist might have said “fuck” upon the tweet scandal. Instead, Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” was the category’s noise-making Brazilian winner as country’s first Oscar, proving that it wasn’t only the extremely vocal Brazilian fans who loved Salles’ masterwork. (Full disclosure: this critic is also a fan of “Emilia Pérez”.) Sharing a warm hug with me on the heels of the recent Q&As we did in New York, the film’s star Fernanda Torres said, “You know, I never thought it could happen with this movie because we started so small. But the wave was becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. And then we had five million people going to the cinemas in Brazil and here at the right time. So it’s a miracle for a small film and I think it happened because it’s a film from the heart. It touches people.”
And that was perhaps the theme of the night, a broad and diverse Academy—more international than ever before since AMPAS’s concerted efforts to widen their membership in 2016—celebrating what has touched them, sometimes echoing the industry precursors and sometimes, rejecting them. The show itself embraced these motivations too, leaving a warm and memorable footprint. If there were hiccups, they were mostly tied to a clips-starved ceremony, occasionally forgetting that what we were there to celebrate was a visual artform. As such, if only they didn’t have five actors only talking about crafts, but also showing them in montages, too. If only the opening montage celebrating Los Angeles also delved into the rich history of black-and-white LA noirs. If only we received a dedicated tribute not only to Gene Hackman, but David Lynch, too. (In its absence, Isabella Rossellini’s lovely blue velvet gown quietly honored the late master.) If only the extensive musical numbers that marked the opening and the gorgeous but overlong James Bond tribute weren’t included at the expense of the performances of the actually nominated songs, and clips of the nominated performances…
The list can go on, but it was undeniably a satisfying Oscars all the same, a night when indie film shined brightly. Before the night ended and I dragged my tired feet to the glamorous NEON party in West Hollywood where Sean Baker was greeted like royalty, and Yura Borisov and Mark Eydehlshteyn danced the night away, I shared a lovely moment with Baker right after his fresh Best Screenplay Oscar win. I had 30 seconds to get back to my seat, and Baker helped me make the most of those seconds by proudly posing with his Oscar for me, before he would go on to add three more to his collection. His bright smile sings like the lyrics of the song that opens his “Anora.” This could be the greatest night of his life. Well, one of them, at the very least.
