The Oscars are underway, and several Australians are in the running for awards at Hollywood’s night of nights.
The 97th Academy Awards kicked off in Los Angeles at 11am AEDT on Monday, hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien for the first time.
LA is still recovering from wildfires that devastated neighbourhoods earlier this year, with producers saying the show will celebrate the city’s resilience.
Several Australians are among this year’s nominees, while a Sydney film studio played a critical role in bringing to life a documentary that is also in the running.
The Australians nominated for Oscars this year
Australian actor Guy Pearce has been nominated for an Oscar for the first time. He’s in the running for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Brutalist, and is up against Kieran Culkin, from A Real Pain, Yura Borisov, from Anora, Edward Norton from A Complete Unknown, and Jeremy Strong, from The Apprentice.
The Brutalist is also vying for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role (Adrien Brody), Actress in a Supporting Role (Felicity Jones), Director (Brady Corbet), Cinematography (Lol Crawley), Film Editing (David Jancso), Music (original score — Daniel Blumberg), Production Design and Writing (original screenplay — Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold).
Australian writer and director Adam Elliot is also in the running for Best Animated Feature Film for Memoir of a Snail, alongside producer Liz Kearney.
The adult stop-motion film is up against Inside Out 2, Flow, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and The Wild Robot.
Cinematographer Greig Fraser is nominated for his work on Dune: Part Two, and producer Maya Gnyp is up for Best Documentary Short for I Am Ready, Warden.
Porcelain War: The documentary feature film nominee
Among the nominees for Best Documentary Feature Film is Porcelain War, which was in part produced from an inner-Sydney studio.
The documentary tells the story of a group of Ukrainian artists who stay behind after Russia’s invasion to defend their country.
The artists continue with their passion for creating porcelain figures, which are brought to life through animation.
“These are artists who are using their art as their form of resistance, and their way of preserving their culture,” producer Camilla Mazzaferro said during a question and answer session moderated by film producer Diane Becker.
In the suburb of Paddington, independent production company Songbird Studios processed 500 hours worth of footage.
“We assembled a team of translators and editors in Sydney and set up a secure server with a firewall,” Mazzaferro said.
“We took that trust that the participants had placed in us very seriously. And we gave them guarantees that any footage that was sent to us would firstly be safe to protect their lives, but also there was very sensitive footage coming from the frontlines.”
The documentary was completed in secrecy for a year, out of fears of Russian interference.
— With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press
