Two hits took the 91st Academy Awards by storm last Sunday: Roma and Bohemian Rhapsody. Far from red carpet appearances, fashion statements and bets on the winning films, this year the Oscars stood out for the unprecedented extent to which the academy broadened the scope of possible winners. With his well-crafted, semi-autobiographical portrait of a 1970s Mexico City neighbourhood named after the Italian capital, filmmaker Alfonso Cuarόn did not compete for Best Foreign Language Film alone — as he would've had to a few years ago — but for ten other awards besides: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design and Best Sound Editing. Even though it had not been commercially released in the US, the Netflix production won three altogether: Best Director and Best Cinematography Awards for Alfonso Cuarόn as well as Best Foreign Language Film Award. Black Panther More celebrated in Egypt was Rami Malek's win. A well-deserved Best Actor in Leading Role award, it recognised Malek's brilliant performance as rock legend and lead singer of Queen Freddie Mercury, who died of Aids in 1991, in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Malek, whose parents are Egyptian, was born in Los Angeles in 1981 and studied at the University of Evansville in Indiana. He made his name playing a hacker in the TV series Mr Robot (2015), for which he won, among other prizes, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. For Bohemian Rhapsody Malek also won the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Malek gave a vibrant speech after receiving the award. Among his statements: “I may not have been the obvious choice but I guess it worked out”; “Thank you, Queen. Thank you guys for allowing me to be the tiniest part of your phenomenal, extraordinary legacy. I am forever in your debt”; and “To anyone struggling with their identity, we made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself. And the fact I'm celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we're longing for stories like this… I am the son of immigrants from Egypt, I'm a first generation American – and part of my story is being written right now”. BlacKKlansman Malek was competing with Christian Bale for his role in Vice, Bradley Cooper for A Star is Born, Willem Dafoe for At Eternity's Gate and Viggo Mortensen for Green Book. Bohemian Rhapsody In spite of director Bryan Singer being replaced by Dexter Fletcher during shooting due to accusations of sexual misconduct, Singer received sole credit for direction of Bohemian Rhapsody, which also received the Best Sound Editing Award, the Best Sound Mixing Award and the Best Film Editing Award (the latter went to John Ottman). Cold War Also competing for the Best Foreign Language Film Award were the Polish film Cold War by Paweł Pawlikowski, the German film Never Look Away by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and the Japanese film Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda as well as the Lebanese film Capernaum by Nadine Labaki, which follows the story of a boy who takes his parents to court after running away from them in a Sea of Galilee shore neighbourhood named Capernaum. Lebanon also took part in the Oscars last year with Ziad Doueiri's The Insult. Green Book Olivia Colman won the Best Actress Award for her role in The Favourite, Regina King Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk and Mahershala Ali Best Supporting Actor for the Green Book. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster and The Killing of Sacred Deer) competed for the Best Director Award for The Favourite with Spike Lee for BlacKkKlansman, Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War and Adam Mckay for Vice as well as Cuarόn. Roma Black Panther received the Costume Design Award, Lady Gaga the Best Original Song Award for Shallow in A Star is Born, First Man the Best Visual Effects Award and Vice the Best Makeup and Hair Award. The Favourite The Best Animated Feature Award went to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Best Documentary Award to Free Solo (which was competing with Minding the Gap, RBG, Hale Country This Morning, This Evening and Of Fathers and Sons). The Best Cinematography Award nominees were The Favourite (Robbie Ryan), Never Look Away (Caleb Deschanel), A Star is Born (Matty Libatique) and Cold War (Lukasz Zal). Green Book won the Best Original Screenplay by Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga, who were competing with Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (The Favourite), Alfonso Cuarόn (Roma), Adam McKay (Vice) and Paul Schrader (First Reformed). Vice The Best Adapted Screenplay Award went to BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel and Kevin Willmott, the nominees having been If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins), A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters and Eric Roth), Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen). The Best Picture Award went to Green Book, the nominees having been Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Roma, A Star is Born and Vice. 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The birth of the academy IN 1927, the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded when M-G-M studio chief Louis B. Mayer gathered 36 invitees from all the creative branches of the film industry for a dinner at his house and discussed creating a group to benefit the film industry. A week later, the crowd dined at Los Angeles's Ambassador Hotel to endorse a proposal to found the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Soon after officers were elected with Douglas Fairbanks as president (1927-1929). First winners Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor The First Academy Awards ceremony took place on 16 May 1929 at the Roosevelt Hotel's Blossom Room with 270 attendees, with the Academy President Willian C. DeMille (1929-1931). Recipients of the awards were announced three months earlier; the next year the Academy kept the results secret but gave an advance list to newspapers for publication at 11 p.m. This continued until 1940 when the Los Angeles Times published the winners in its evening edition - readily available to arriving guests. That prompted the sealed-envelope system in use today. By the second year, enthusiasm for the Awards was such that a Los Angeles radio station produced a live broadcast.
