The 93rd Academy Awards, which the Chinese media claimed were treated with indifference, were held this morning (26) in Hong Kong time. “The film’s director, Zhao Ting, became the first Chinese-American female director to win this award in Oscar history. In addition, the British actor Anthony Crane Kenshi won the Oscar for the second time with the film “Daddy Can’t Grow Old”. However, the documentary “No Cutting”, which was based on Hong Kong’s campaign against the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, lost the “Best Short Documentary” award to “Colette”, which talked about World War II.
The latest Academy Awards ceremony, which was delayed for nearly two months due to the epidemic, was held at Union Station and the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on the evening of the 25th, and the director of “The Wanderers”, Zhao Ting, won the “Best Director” award, becoming the first Chinese woman to win the “Best Director” award. After Taiwan’s Ang Lee, she is also the second Chinese to win the award in history.
Frances McDurman, who also won “Best Actress”, is a three-time winner of the award for “Wanderlust”, a film about a widowed and unemployed woman who drives alone through the United States to reflect on life and the economic system. Zhao Ting said in her acceptance speech that the shooting process was crazy and a once-in-a-lifetime journey. She also said that when she encountered difficulties, she would remember the “Three Character Classic” she once recited, which revealed that “the beginning of human nature is good”, and hoped to continue to find the beauty and goodness of human nature.
However, the documentary “No Cut”, which recorded the anti-revision demonstration in Hong Kong, failed to win the “Best Short Documentary” and was won by American director Anthony Giacchino’s “Colette”, which was based on the history of World War II. As for the “Best International Film” award, which was contested by Hong Kong films for the second time, Hong Kong’s “Young You” was also defeated by the Danish film “A Lesson in Drunken Beauty”, which was nominated for the same award as “Farewell My Concubine” directed by Chen Kaige.
Other major Oscar winners include South Korean actress Yoon Eui-jeong for “Best Supporting Actress” with the film “Farming Home”. Best Supporting Actor” was won by black actor Daniel Kaluuya for “Judas and the Black Messiah”; “Best Original Screenplay” was won by Emerald Fennell for “Super Rhinoceros Queen” with the theme of sexual assault; and The “Best Adapted Screenplay” went to “Can Dad Not Grow Old”, which was adapted from the stage play “Father”, describing the conflict between a father suffering from cognitive impairment and his daughter.
The Oscars have few Hong Kong films shortlisted, but the Hong Kong Television Broadcast Limited, commonly known as TVB, has made an exception this year not to broadcast the awards ceremony, which is suspected to be related to Beijing’s propaganda department’s request to handle the awards ceremony in a low profile, but TVB stressed that it is a purely commercial decision.
The Beijing propaganda department’s decision is said to be related to Zhao Ting and the documentary “No Cut”, a record of Hong Kong’s anti-revision demonstrations. Zhao Ting won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director with “Wanderlust” earlier, becoming the first female Chinese-American director to win the award. But because she had criticized “China is full of lies” years ago, she went from being “proud of China” to “insulting China”, and the award-winning film “Wandering World” was suddenly released without a date. Later, Bloomberg reported that after the Oscar finalists were announced, Beijing’s propaganda department ordered Chinese media not to broadcast the ceremony live and to downplay the coverage.
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