‘Anora’ wins best picture at 97th Academy Awards

“Anora,” a strip club Cinderella story without the fairy tale ending, was crowned best picture at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, handing Sean Baker’s gritty, Brooklyn-set screwball farce Hollywood’s top prize.

In a stubbornly fluctuating Oscar season, “Anora,” the Palme d’Or-winner at the Cannes Film Festival, emerged as the unlikely frontrunner. Baker’s tale of an erotic dancer who elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch – unusually explicit for a best-picture winner – was made for just $6 million.

But Oscar voters, eschewing blockbuster contenders like “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two,” instead added “Anora” to a string of recent indie best picture winners, including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “CODA” and “Nomadland.”

For a film industry that’s been transformed by streaming and humbled by economic turmoil, Baker and “Anora” epitomized a kind of cinematic purity. On the campaign trail, Baker called for the return to the 90-day exclusive theatrical release.

“Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater,” Baker said Sunday. “Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen.”

In personally winning four Oscars on Sunday, Baker tied the mark held by Walt Disney, who won for four different films in 1954. That Baker and Disney share the record is ironic; his “The Florida Project” took place in a low-budget motel in the shadow of Disney World.

“Long live independent film!” shouted Baker from the Dolby Theatre stage.

Eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture came away with at least one award at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, in a ceremony that saw the acting wins go to Madison, Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña.

Twenty-two years after winning best actor for “The Pianist,” Brody won the same Oscar again for his performance as another Holocaust survivor in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist. His win came over Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”), who had the chance of becoming the youngest best actor ever, a record owned by Brody.

“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and othering,” said Brody. “I pray for a healthier and happier and more inclusive world. If the past can teach us anything it’s to not let hate go unchecked.”

Madison won best actress for her breakthrough performance in “Anora,” a victory that came over the category favorite, Demi Moore (“The Substance”). Both she and Baker spoke, as they did at the Cannes Film Festival where “Anora” won the Palme d’Or, about honoring the lives of sex workers.

Netflix’s beleaguered contender “Emilia Pérez,” the lead nominee going into the show, weathered the scandal caused by offensive tweets by star Karla Sofía Gascón, to pick up awards for best song and best supporting actress, for Saldaña.

“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” said Saldaña. “I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”

Source: AP
--Agencies