Oscars: The Modern Renaissance of Independent Filmmaking
In a historic Oscars ceremony last Sunday, independent cinema led the charge with five of the seven major categories, with Sean Baker’s “Anora” taking home Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and the night’s biggest award, Best Picture.
Other films, including “Flow” and “No Other Land” also took home gold in their respective categories of Best Animated Picture and Best Documentary Film, marking record-breaking wins in the first Academy Award for a Latvian film and the first Academy Award for a film without a North-American distributor in Oscars history.
Baker, the writer-editor-director of “Anora,” made the film for only $6 million independently; the film was picked up for North America distribution by Neon months before the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival. Neon, known for their acquisitions of superb independent films, has now claimed two Best Picture distributions, as well as the last four consecutive Palme d’Or winners — and five Palme d’Or winners in the last ten years.
In his acceptance speech for Best Director, Baker advocated for the protection of independent cinemas, emphasizing the importance of repertory theaters to independent filmmakers today:
“Watching a film in a theater with an audience is an experience — we can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. In a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home.” He continued, “Right now, the theater-going experience is under threat. Movie theaters — especially independent owned theaters — are struggling, and it’s up to us to support them […] If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture. This is my battlecry.”
The documentary film “No Other Land” also marks a new achievement for both Palestinian filmmakers and independent filmmakers, as the film is the first win for any Palestinian filmmaker and holds a unique position as the only Oscar-winning picture without North-American distribution. The film, co-directed by Palestinian directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, and Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, covers the destruction of Masafer Yatta, a town in the West Bank which was Adra’s home. Although the film does not have any formal distribution in the United States, many independent cinemas across the nation are playing the film following its win.
Another nation was rewarded with their first Oscars-gold through Latvian writer-director Gints Zilbalodis’s animated feature “Flow,” which also premiered at Cannes last summer — the first Latvian film to premiere at Cannes since 1998. The film was entirely animated and rendered in the free open-source animation program Blender, and did not utilize storyboarding in the pre-production process, both of which are uncommon in animated filmmaking. After its international film festival circuit run, the film became the most viewed film of all time in Latvian theaters.
Baker, who gave talks and mediated Q&As at several cinemas across the country along the press junket for “Anora,” gave special emphasis to the importance of distributing films for the theater experience: “Distributors, please focus, first and foremost, on the theatrical releases of your films. Neon did that for me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” He continued, “Parents, introduce your children to feature films in movie theaters, and you’ll be moulding the next generation of movie lovers and filmmakers. For all of us, when we can, please watch movies in the theater, and let’s keep the great tradition of the movie-going experience alive and well […] Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. I know I will.”