On April 25, the 93rd Academy Awards took place in Los Angeles. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the event was organized taking into account a number of restrictions. In addition to the traditional venue, the Dolby Cinema, the main events took place at the Union Station in Los Angeles. European nominees who were unable to travel to the United States joined the ceremony from London and Paris. The number of participants simultaneously present at the event was reduced to 170.

Just before the ceremony, a special event called Oscars: Into the Spotlight took place, during which musical performances by Leslie Odom, Laura Pausini, Daniel Pemberton, Diane Warren and other artists were featured.

They performed five Oscar-nominated songs this year.

The broadcasts included Speak Now (One Night in Miami), Io Si (Seen) (All Life Ahead), Fight for You (Judas and the Black Messiah), Húsavíkt (Eurovision Music Competition) and Hear My Voice ("Trial of the Chicago Seven").

The ceremony this year for the third time in a row was held without a host.

The awards were traditionally presented by prominent figures in the film industry: director Bong Joon-ho, actors Laura Dern, Harrison Ford, Halle Berry, Brian Cranston, Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt, Renee Zellweger and others.

The event opened with a performance by actress and director Regina King.

She recalled how 2020 turned out to be for the film industry, and talked about how the coronavirus pandemic affected the filming process in Hollywood. 

The second woman in history

The best film of the past year was Chloe Zhao's drama "The Land of the Nomads".

Zhao also received an award for Best Director and became the second woman in Oscar history (after Katherine Bigelow, The Hurt Locker) and the first Asian director to win this nomination.

Also, the film, which competed for an award in six categories, took the prize for Best Actress.

The statuette was awarded to Frances McDormand, for whom she became the third - previously the actress received the prestigious award for the projects "Fargo" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

  • Chloe Zhao

  • Reuters

  • © Chris Pizzello

In the film, Chloe Zhao McDormand played a 60-year-old woman named Fern, who lost her job and was forced to lead a nomadic lifestyle.

In her van, in search of earnings, she goes on a journey.

The film reliably demonstrates the everyday life of people who find themselves in a similar situation: the film crew traveled around the cities for several months with real nomads.

Some of them played roles in the tape.

The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay was awarded to Florian Zeller, director and one of the authors of the script for the film Father, based on his play of the same name. The tape also won an award for Best Actor - it was performed by Anthony Hopkins. He played an 80-year-old man suffering from dementia. The hero suppresses all attempts of his daughter to find him a nurse, claiming that he does not need help. At the same time, he continues to lose memory and ceases to recognize those around him.

The Best Original Screenplay nomination was won by director and screenwriter Emirald Fennell's dramatic thriller Girl Promising.

It tells the story of 30-year-old Cassandra, who hopes to avenge a friend who was a victim of rape many years ago.

The girl finds everyone who did not show due attention to the investigation of this case, wanting to punish them.

At the same time, she is hunting random men who are ready to take advantage of women's weakness.

Daniel Kaluuya, who starred in the biographical drama Judas and the Black Messiah, won the Best Supporting Actor award.

A similar award in the female category was presented to Yun Yeo-jung for his work in the film Minari.

The film became one of the favorites of the American Film Academy this year: it received six nominations, including in the main categories, but won only one. 

  • Yoon Yeo-jung

  • Reuters

  • © Todd Wawrychuk / AMPAS

The drama "Minari" reflects the director's childhood memories of the times when his parents moved from South Korea to the United States.

In the story, they hope to build a farm in Arkansas and fulfill the American dream.

Their seven-year-old son is trying to get used to a new lifestyle at this time.

The director believes that the film will also be interesting for people unfamiliar with the problems of immigrants, since it raises the universal theme of the family.

David Fincher's biographical drama "Munk", filmed in the style of old Hollywood and telling the story of the work of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz on the cult film "Citizen Kane", was nominated in ten categories and won two of them - Best Cinematography (Eric Messerschmidt) and "The best work of a production designer."

Christopher Nolan's film Argument won an Oscar for visual effects, and the editing award went to Darius Marder's musical drama The Sound of Metal.

The Best Foreign Language Film was Thomas Winterberg's One More Film.

Her heroes - a school psychologist and three teachers - are testing the theory that a person from birth lacks 0.5 ppm of alcohol in their blood, and only being a little drunk can one become truly happy. 

  • Thomas Winterberg

  • Reuters

  • © Chris Pizzello

The prize for the best song was awarded to the composition Fight for You, which sounded in the film "Judas and the Black Messiah".

In the nomination "Best Soundtrack" the cartoon "Soul" won.

He also became the best full-length animated film.

In a similar nomination for short films, the prize was taken by the project “If something happens, I love you”.

"Oscar" as the best full-length documentary went to "My teacher-octopus" - a video diary of oceanologist Craig Foster.

In the short film segment, the winner was the Colette tape about the heroine of the French Resistance Colette Marine-Catherine.

The Best Fiction Short Film Award went to Travon Free and Martin Desmond Rowe, who directed Two Distant Strangers.

Also at the ceremony, two Gene Hersholt Humanitarian Awards were presented.

The first owner was the Film and Television Foundation.

The charitable organization has been operating since the late 1930s.

Its president and one of the founders was Hersholt himself.

The second went to actor, director, screenwriter and producer Tyler Perry.