In Los Angeles, on the night of March 10th, the 96th ceremony of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oscars took place. Oscars are awarded every year to the best directors, screenwriters, actors, animators, and other film personalities. It is considered to be the most prestigious award in the field of filmmaking, as even just to be among the nominees is considered a victory.
As many film critics expected, Oppenheimer won multiple awards – winning seven from their 11 nominations. This movie describes the story of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons.
The film 20 Days in Mariupol by Ukrainian director Mstislav Chernov won the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary. This is Ukraine’s first award from the American Film Academy. On stage, the director of the documentary gave a powerful speech to world-famous stars and movie artists and moved everyone present with his words.
“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history. I’m honored but probably I will be the first director on this stage who will say: I wish I never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities. I wish to give all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their land, and all the civilians who are now in their jails. But I can not change the history, I cannot change the past. But we all together, I’m on you, some of the most talented people in the world. We can make sure that the history record is set straight and that the truth will prevail. The people of Mariupol and those who gave their lives will never be forgotten. Because cinema forms memories and memories form history.”
With pain in his voice and tears in his eyes, director Mstislav Chernov declared, “Glory to Ukraine!”
The Ukrainian director’s film presents the everyday life of a war correspondent who recounts life in besieged Mariupol using a video diary format. Chernov himself and his colleagues from the Associated Press (Eugene Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko) arrived in Mariupol on February 24 at 3:30, and just an hour later the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began. These journalists were the only representatives of international media who documented the fighting in Mariupol and saw with their own eyes how tanks fired on residential buildings, how military and civilians were killed, and how a bomb hit the maternity ward of the second Mariupol hospital. On the 21st day of the war, the journalists left Mariupol through a humanitarian corridor. Mstislav Chernov and his team shot about 30 hours of video, which they soon turned into an hour-and-a-half-long documentary called 20 Days in Mariupol. At the end of the film, a caption appears that announces that the city was fully occupied by Russia after 86 days. The war is still going on.
It is important to emphasize that this scene, with the awarding and the speech of the Ukrainian director, was cut from the post-broadcast version of the Oscars. When the TV channel Suspilne, which is the exclusive broadcaster of the ceremony in Ukraine, received the shortened version of the Oscar ceremony for future broadcast, it was noticed that the organizers, The Walt Disney Company Limited decided to remove the part with the documentary.
It is also important to note that last year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Film was awarded to the film Navalny about the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Then, the statuette was awarded to Yulia Navalny and her speech was not cut out of the post-broadcast.
Of course, Suspilne expressed their strong indignation to the organizers of the award and said that, instead of the shortened version that was sent to them, they will show the unabridged broadcast. But for us, it remains under question whether this act shows that the organizers support the aggressor country or it is just a mistake of the editors.