Innholdsfortegnelse for Awards Special II February 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

AWARDS SEASON 2017 It’s Feb. 26. Amid fears of anti-Muslim sentiment and growing tensions between Iran and the U.S., director Asghar Farhadi takes the stage at the Oscars to accept the trophy for best foreign-language film and issues a call for peace. Clutching his statuette, he declares, “I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people who respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment.” The audience, including a visibly moved Steven Spielberg, erupts in applause. No, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario for Oscar night 2017; it’s what actually happened on Oscar night 2012, when Farhadi won for his masterful domestic drama A Separation. The director’s words moved many. Donald Trump evidently wasn’t one of them. (The future president did, however, vlog the next…

The best picture nominees venture from a futuristic spacecraft back to World War II, yet each has a powerful link to the conflicts and hopes of today ARRIVAL • FENCES • HACKSAW RIDGE • HELL OR HIGH WATER • HIDDEN FIGURES LA LA LAND • LION • MANCHESTER BY THE SEA • MOONLIGHT For Shawn Levy and producers Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde, Arrival had an undeniable synergy. At the end of a general meeting with Eric Heisserer, the screenwriter mentioned an obscure science fiction short story he wanted to adapt. Then, during another general with a pre-Sicario Denis Villeneuve, the French-Canadian director mentioned he always wanted to make a sci-fi film. Levy spoke to THR about how he and the producers somehow helped Villeneuve bring his esoteric…

Based on Saroo Brierley’s memoir A Long Way Home, first-time director Garth Davis’ Lion follows the journey of a man (Dev Patel) trying to find his birth mother in India 20-plus years after getting lost at a train station there and being adopted by a family in Tasmania. To get the film made, 37-year-old Englishman Iain Canning and his See-Saw Films partner, Emile Sherman — both are nominated with Angie Fielder — embarked on their own epic odyssey: It began in Park City, Utah, and will end at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, after stops in Kolkata, India; Sydney; Hobart, Tasmania; and Toronto, where the film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Canning spoke with THR about putting Patel through the ringer and commandeering Kolkata’s busiest bridge. How did you…

AUSTRALIA Tanna Standing on the edge of an active volcano, the spiritual mother of the island of Tanna, Australian documentary makers Martin Butler and Bentley Dean never expected to be swapping traditional penis sheaths for red-carpet wear at this year’s Oscar ceremony. “It’s all surprising given the film’s humble beginnings. Four years ago, the villagers had never seen a film, and Martin and I hadn’t made a feature, so to get to this stage is very special,” says co-director and cinematographer Dean of their film named for the South Pacific island. Dean’s desire to live within another culture on Tanna, where he’d made a TV documentary in 2004, fueled his and Butler’s idea to make a feature film in the islanders’ native Navhaul language. After being guided to the village…

Arguably Iran’s leading filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi already has one Oscar (for 2012’s A Separation), and the upcoming Academy Awards would give him a chance to take home another. But with the announcement of President Trump’s travel ban, the red carpet suddenly was pulled out from under him. Farhadi initially had planned to still attend, but as circumstances developed, he issued a statement saying he would not be present. “It now seems that the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts, which are in no way acceptable to me, even if exceptions were to be made for my trip,” he wrote. “Hardliners, despite their nationalities, political arguments and wars, regard and understand the world in very much the same way. In order to understand the world, they…

The process of making Fences into a film began back in the 1980s, when August Wilson initially adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning play for the screen, then stalled due to his insistence that the movie be directed by a black filmmaker. Thirty years later (and more than a decade after Wilson’s death), that director ended up being Denzel Washington, who also starred in the 2010 Broadway revival of the play, winning a Tony Award for his portrayal of Troy Maxson, a frustrated middle-aged former Negro League ballplayer who’s having trouble accepting change in 1950s Pittsburgh. With the help of Todd Black, his longtime producing partner, and Scott Rudin, Washington made a film that was true to the emotional intensity of the play yet cinematic. It has been recognized by the Oscars…

During a recent ride from LAX to Beverly Hills, Donna Gigliotti’s driver inquired as to the reason for her visit. The veteran New York producer said she was in Los Angeles for Hidden Figures, the Oscar-nominated film she made with Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams and director Theodore Melfi, about a trio of female African-American mathematicians who helped NASA put the first men into space even while having to endure segregation and racism. The driver asked if he could shake her hand, a common reaction in the collective outpouring of goodwill for the film. Gigliotti spoke with THR about finding the story, the reaction to the script and Donald Trump’s attention span. How did you find Margot Lee Shetterly’s book proposal? There is a book report that comes to…

In his career, Matt Damon has earned Oscar noms for lead actor (Good Will Hunting, The Martian), supporting actor (Invictus) and has won one for original screenplay with Ben Affleck (Hunting). But with Manchester by the Sea, the 46-year-old has his first producing nomination, along with Kimberly Steward, Lauren Beck and Chris Moore, for a film he once planned to direct and star in. Damon spoke with THR about making the movie on budget, how the awards have changed since his 1998 win and why Ben Affleck always will choose him over Jimmy Kimmel. How did you first get involved with the project? John Krasinski had this idea and talked to me about it over dinner. We decided I would direct and he would act. I had done a play…

Land of Mine, Denmark’s contender for the best foreign-language Oscar, is set in the 1940s, just after the horrors of World War II. But the film, which explores how a society judges and hates those considered to be enemies of the state, has gained contemporary relevance in the wake of the Trump election. “I think it’s quite shocking that it almost mirrors society at the time,” says Land of Mine director Martin Zandvliet. “The film at its core is about not judging and hating people as groups, that we should see each other as individuals, which seems especially pertinent now, after the Trump election. I wish it didn’t. I really wish it went the other way. I’ve basically stopped reading newspapers because I can’t believe it. It seems frightening that…

Sweden’s A Man Called Ove, a heartwarming comedy about a curmudgeonly widower, is a story with legs. And thanks to its Oscar nomination, it’s sure to travel. But one of its stars, Bahar Pars, who holds dual Iranian and Swedish citizenship, might not be able to. At press time, President Trump’s travel ban on refugees and others from seven Muslimmajority countries had been suspended by a federal judge. But with the administration’s appeal pending, the ban’s fate is uncertain — as is Pars’ ability to attend the Oscars. “Of course it’s terrible,” says director Hannes Holm. “But I texted Bahar, and I told her I don’t believe in walls. If you build a wall, there will always be some way you can slip through, a hole or something.” Holm regards…

Twenty-two years after Bill Mechanic joined forces with Mel Gibson for the Oscar-winning film Braveheart, the two reteamed on another war story, Hacksaw Ridge — about a real-life combat medic who saved dozens of lives during World War II, without ever touching a gun. Last time, Mechanic was the 20th Century Fox chairman who greenlighted Gibson’s picture; this time, he’s one of the producers. The industry veteran, who also produced the 82nd Academy Awards, described Hacksaw’s 15-year journey How did Hacksaw come to you? It goes way back to 2001. Terry Benedict, a documentary filmmaker, secured the rights from Desmond Doss, who had bequeathed them to his church, the Seventh-day Adventists. He never wanted to sell the rights, so he’d been turning people down for 60 years. But [at age]…

Fred Berger and producer Jordan Horowitz believed in Damien Chazelle’s vision and talent long before the director made the 2014 Sundance breakout Whiplash. Back in 2011, Chazelle was just a New York transplant with Hollywood hopes of creating a modern musical with original music — a commercially risky proposition that seemed overly ambitious for a young director with only one movie (2009’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench) under his belt. But Berger, Horowitz and fellow producers Marc Platt and Gary Gilbert stuck with Chazelle and his dream, which eventually became La La Land, starring Emma Stone as aspiring actress Mia and Ryan Gosling as jazz musician Sebastian, and nabbed a recordtying 14 Oscar nominations. Berger, 35, spoke to THR about crane malfunctions, the pact he made to protect…

Best foreign-language film traditionally is one of the hardest Oscar categories to handicap, but if there is a frontrunner this year, it is Maren Ade’s oddball dramedy Toni Erdmann. The best reviewed film out of Cannes, where it surprisingly was snubbed by the jury, this tale of a father and daughter he’s a tireless practical joker, she’s a driven corporate professional — was a box-office hit at home in Germany, where it has grossed nearly $5 million, and the foreign-language success story of the year. It swept the European Film Awards, winning best film, best director, best screenplay and best actor awards for stars Peter Simonischek and Sandra Huller. And Paramount has just acquired English-language remake rights for the film, with Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig attached to star as…

Memorable moments from a storied history The Academy Awards has an illustrious history of best picture upsets. There was 1942, when John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley snatched victory from Citizen Kane; 1982, when Chariots of Fire beat out both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Reds; and 1999, when Shakespeare in Love slaughtered Saving Private Ryan. None, however, produces as much teethgnashing as the 2006 Oscars, when Crash controversially edged out that year’s overwhelming favorite, Brokeback Mountain. There were several reasons why this particular upset was so, well, upsetting. For one, Crash — an ensemble drama written and directed by Paul Haggis about racial unrest in Los Angeles was a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. Ta-Nehisi Coates fell into the hate-it camp; the essayist said of the film in 2009, “If…