14032023-LSTC-01.qxd 14-03-2023 00:26 Page 1 c m y b TRIBUNE Missed out Cate Blanchett at the 95th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. She was nominated for the Best Actress award for Tár, but could not win the title. REUTERS CHANDIGARH | TUESDAY | 14 MARCH 2023 Proud on the podium KARTIKI GONSALVES AND GUNEET MONGA PHOTOS: REUTERS/AGENCIES Moment of joy The Elephant Whisperers brings home Best Documentary Short Film Award India’s short documentary The Elephant Whisperers has brought home an Oscar in the Best Documentary Short Film category at the 95th Oscar Awards. The award was received by the director Kartiki Gonsalves and producer Guneet Monga. In her winning speech, Gonsalves said, “I stand here today to speak on the sacred bond between us and our natural world. For the respect of Thank you indigenous communities. For to the academy empathy towards other living for recognising our beings we share our space film highlighting with. And finally for co-exisindigenous people tence. Thank to Guneet, my and animals. producer and my entire team KARTIKI GONSALVES, and finally, to my mother father DIRECTOR and sister who are up there somewhere, you’re the centre of my universe. To my motherland India.” The Elephant Whisperers marks Kartiki Gonsalves’ directorial debut. The documentary is about the bond that develops between a couple and an orphaned baby elephant, Raghu. – IANS No violence please! Comedian Jimmy Kimmel, returning for a third stint as Oscar host, opened the 95th Academy Awards with a monologue that jokingly admonished the stars filling the Dolby Theatre to behave, a year after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage, but was allowed to remain in the venue to accept the award for best actor minutes later. “If anyone in this theatre commits an act of violence at any point during this show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute speech,” he said. “If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just sit there and do what you did last year, nothing,” Kimmel added. — Reuters OVER THE MOON: Best Supporting Actor Ke Huy Quan, Best Actress Michelle Yeoh, Best Actor Brendan Fraser(for The Whale) and Best Supporting Actress Jamie Lee Curtis; and (R) Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang and Daniel Kwan pose with the award for best picture for Everything Everywhere All at Once E VERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE bagged seven awards, including Best Picture, at the Oscar Awards 2023. Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis all won acting honours, while the filmmaking duo known as the Daniels—Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert—won for both direction and original screenplay. Oscars 2023 Everything Everywhere All At Once bags seven titles; Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Fraser win Yeoh became the first Asian woman to bag the Best Actress award for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. The 60-year-old Malaysian, Yeoh, won her first Oscar for a performance that relied as much on her comic and dramatic chops, as it did her kungfu skills. Hers is the first best actress win for a non-white actress in 20 years. “Ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime,” said Yeoh, who received a raucous standing ovation. In winning best director, the Daniels, both 35 years old, won for just their second and decidedly un-Oscar bait feature. They’re just the third directing pair to win the award, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (West Side Story) and Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men). Scheinert dedicated the award ‘to the moms of the world’. TOP HONOURS The Best Actor award was bagged by ON A WINNING NOTE BEST PICTURE Everything BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Everywhere All at Once BEST ACTRESS Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once BEST ACTOR Brendan Fraser, The Whale BEST DIRECTOR Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once Brendan Fraser, culminating the former action star’s return to centre stage for his physical transformation as a 600-lb reclusive professor in The Whale. The best-actor race had been one of the closest contests of the night, but Fraser in the end edged Austin Butler. “So this is what the multiverse looks like,” said a clearly moved Fraser, pointing to the Everything Everywhere All at Once crew. The former child star Quan capped his own extraordinary comeback with the Oscar for best Supporting Actor for his performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. “Mom, I just won an Oscar!” said Quan, 51, whose family fled Vietnam in the war when he was a child. Minutes later, Quan’s cast-mate Jamie Lee Curtis won the award for Best Supporting Actress. It also made history for Curtis, a first-time winner who alluded to herself as ‘a Nepo baby’ during her win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. She’s the rare World dances to Indian tune Naatu Naatu from RRR creates Oscar history, wins Best Original Song Naatu Naatu, the peppy, foot-tapping chartbuster from SS Rajamouli’s Telugu period action film RRR, waltzed its way to history by becoming the first Indian track to win the Academy Award in the Best Original Song category. Naatu Naatu, Naacho Naacho in Hindi, is composed by MM Keeravaani and penned by Chandrabose. “I grew up listening to The Carpenters and now here I am with the Oscars. There was only one wish on my mind, so was Rajamouli’s and our families’ — RRR has to win…,” Keeravani said while Chandrabose simply signed off with a namaste. Naatu Naatu was nominated alongside Applause from Tell It Like a Woman, Hold My Hand from Top Gun: Maverick, Lift Me Up from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and This Is a Life from Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is the third major international recognition for the Telugu song after Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award the first Hindi song to win an wins. The film’s team described Academy Award in the Best the win as a ‘surreal moment’. Original Score and Original Song JR NTR RRR lead actor Ram Charan took to categories. It was composed by AR his Twitter account and shared a long note Rahman and penned by Gulzar. which he captioned, “We have won!! We have won as Indian cinema! We won as a country! The Father-son bonding Oscar Award is coming home!” Charan wrote.” It’s even more special for the father and son — Naatu Naatu celebrates the inclusive spirit of music director M.M. Keeravani and playback dance and features Charan and Jr NTR matching singer Kaala Bhairava—who have worked on steps to its catchy rhythm. The title of the track Naatu Naatu. While Keeravani composed the translates to bucolic in Telugu. It demonstrates the music for the iconic song, Kaala lent his voice, spirit of fun in country music in its runtime of 4.35 along with singer Rahul Sipligunj. The 95th minutes. Jai Ho from the 2008 British film Slum- Oscar Awards show featured both of them, dog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, was albeit at different points of time. MM KEERAVAANI AND CHANDRABOSE Live performance applauded Naatu Naatu singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava received a standing ovation at Oscars 2023. The singers gave a live performance at the 95th Academy Awards. It was a goosebump moment for all when Naatu Naatu took over the Oscars stage with American dancers doing full justice to the track. American actor-dancer Lauren Gottlieb also grooved on the track. Actress Deepika Padukone introduced the song to the audience and called it a ‘banger’. The audience loved Rahul and Kaala’s performance as they all stood up from their seats and applauded them. — IANS c m y b BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM All Quiet on the Western Front, Germany BEST ORIGINAL SONG Naatu Naatu, from RRR, music by M.M. Keeravaani and lyrics by Chandrabose DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM The Elephant Whisperers Oscar winner whose parents were both Oscar nominees, something she emotionally referenced in her speech. Tony Curtis was nominated for The Defiant Ones in 1959 and Janet Leigh was nominated in 1961 for Psycho. The German-language WWI epic All Quiet on the Western Front—Netflix’s top contender this year— bagged four awards. It won for cinematography, production design, score and best international film. Though Bassett missed on supporting actress, Ruth E Carter won for the costume design of Wakanda Forever, four years after becoming the first ‘Black’ designer to win an Oscar for Black Panther. This one makes Carter the first ‘Black’ woman to win two Oscars. Neither Tom Cruise, whose Top Gun: Maverick was vying for Best Picture award, nor James Cameron, director of best-picture nominee Avatar: The Way of Water, were present at the ceremony. — AP KANGANA RANAUT PRAISES DEEPIKA Actress Kangana Ranaut has praised Deepika Padukone and said she stands as a testimony to the fact that Indian women are the best. “How beautiful @deepikapadukone looks, not easy to stand there holding the entire nation together, carrying its image, reputation on those delicate shoulders and speaking so graciously and confidently. Deepika stands tall as a testimony to the fact that Indian women are the best,” Kangana wrote on Monday. IANS Beauty in BLACK Actress Deepika Padukone, who was among the presenters at the Oscars, walked the coveted red carpet, as she picked a classic Hollywood look for the event with an all-black attire. Meanwhile, before Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava earned a standing ovation for their electrifying performance on Naatu Naatu, Deepika said, “An irresistibly catchy chorus, electrifying beats and Deepika killer dance moves to match Padukone have made this song a globpicks classic al sensation. It plays during Hollywood look a pivotal scene in RRR, a movie about the friendship for the gala between real-life Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. In addition to being sung in Telugu and illustrating the film’s anti-colonialist themes, it’s also a total banger!” She added, “It’s earned millions of views on Youtube and Tik Tok. Has audiences dancing in movie theatres all around the world and is also the first song ever from Indian production to be nominated for an Oscar. Do you know Naatu? Because if you don’t you’re about to. From the film RRR this is Naatu Naatu.” — IANS