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Oscars Roundup: Period. End Of Sentence, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther, Roma, Bao Win Oscars, Billy Porter Wins Red Carpet

Period, End of Sentence has won the Oscar for the best documentary. The film, set in India, and based on the topic of menstruation beat films like Black Sheep, End Game, Lifeboat and A Night At The Garden to emerge as the winner. Period End of Sentence has been co-produced by Guneet Monga under her banner Sikhya Entertainment – the production house behind movies like Masaan and The Lunchbox.

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The year’s Academy Awards made history by including 15 women among the list of winners.

Period. End of Sentence has been directed by the Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi and follows the lives of girls of Hapur – a small village in Northern India – as they try to install a sanitary pad vending machine in their village. The film also covers Arunachalam Muruganathn – the real-life Padman on whom the Akshay Kumar movie was based on. The film has been financed by The Pad Project- an organisation established by a group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton.

Peter Farrelly’s biographical drama Green Book won the Oscar for the best picture. The movie which had won the Golden Globe for the Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), is based on the lives of Afro American pianist Don Shirley and an Italian thug Tony Vallelonga. Featuring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, the movie also won the award for the Best Adapted Screenplay. The movie’s best picture win had irked people like Spike Lee and raised quite a few eyebrows.

Bur Mahershala Ali registered his second win in the best supporting actor category for his performance in Green Book. His fellow nominees included Sam Rockwell for his role as George W Bush in Vice, Richard E Grant as a drug dealer in Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Adam Driver as a cop in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Ali, who previously won the award in 2017 for Moonlight, is the only black actor other than Denzel Washington to have two Oscars.

Ali played Don Shirley – a pianist who hires an Italian American thug Tony Vallelonga (played by Viggo Mortensen) as a driver and bodyguard during the pre-civil rights era of the 1960s as he travels the country for a concert tour.

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Rami Malek was adjudged the best actor for his performance as the Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Accepting the award, he said “We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself. The fact that I’m celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we’re longing for stories like this.” His performance was widely appreciated with Brian May, the lead guitarist of Queen, saying the actor was never really performing but inhabiting him. “We sometimes forgot he was Rami,” May said according to NY Times.

Olivia Colman won the Oscar for the Best Actor Female for her performance in the period drama The Favourite. In a speech, that has since become a favourite of many, she said “This is hilarious! I’ve got an Oscar!” She thanked her co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz and called them “the two loveliest women in the world to go to work with.”

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Alfonso Cuaron’s Netflix drama Roma won the award for the Best Foreign Language Film while he walked away with the award for the Best Director. The director, who also shot the film, won the award for the best cinematography. The movie is a retelling of the director’s own childhood and is set in the Mexico of the 1970s.  Black Panther won in three categories – original score, costume design and production design. Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Torro – popularly known as ‘The Three Amigos of Cinema’ now have shared the best director award five times during the last six years.

Regina King won the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk.

While Spike Lee won the best original screenplay award for BlacKkKlansman, Green Book won the award for adapted screenplay. Bohemian Rhapsody, based on the life of Queen band member Freddie Mercury has won the awards in two categories namely – Editing and Sound Mixing.

La La Land director Damien Chazelle’s First Man won the award for the best visual effects. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse emerged as the best-animated film. Domee Shi and Becky Neiman Cobb won the Oscar for the Best Animated Short Film for Bao.

Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born won the award for the Best Original Score for Lady Gaga with the song Shallow.

But Billy Porter perhaps won the most. The star arrived on the red carpet in a black tuxedo and skirt ensemble custom designed by Christian Siriano.

Image Courtesy: NewsNation