Another History-Making Oscars?

Vanessa Obioha

Last year, before the coronavirus pandemic induced lockdown across the world, the Academy Awards recorded a historic feat when it crowned the South Korean film ‘Parasite’ by Bong Joon Ho as Best Picture. It would be the first time a non-English-language film would take home Hollywood’s coveted top prize.

At a time the world is recovering from a battered 2020 that shut down theatres and pushed the Oscars date to April, all eyes are on the Best Picture and Best Director which have Asian nominees. ‘Minari’, the critically acclaimed film about a Korean American family immigration to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream is in the top race to win the Best Picture award. Directed by Isaac Lee Chung, the film mirrors his childhood encounter and is considered a representation of the challenges Asian immigrants face. The stars of the film Steven Yeun — the family patriarch — and his co-star Yuh-Jung Youn are also in the spotlight. Yeun is the first Asian-American to ever be nominated for a Best Actor award while Youn is the first Korean actress nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category.

‘Minari’ is nominated alongside ‘Nomadland’, another top contender with a Chinese director Chloé Zhao attached to it. Zhao is a nominee in the Best Director category and will be contending with Chung for the award as well as Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman), the other female nominee in the category.

While ‘Minari’ and ‘Nomadland’ are positioned as frontrunners in both categories, it would be interesting to see Shaka King’s ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ emerge winner of the Best Picture. The last black film producer to take the honour was Steve McQueen in 2013 for his film ’12 Years a Slave’.

A win for any of these nominees will indicate the academy’s resilience in making the Oscars as diverse as possible. The academy has been pilloried for shunning non-white filmmakers and actors in the past, leading to the body expanding its membership to other continents. The academy boasts 9,921 members as of 2020.

No doubt, this year’s Oscars taking place in Los Angeles at both the Dolby Theatre and Union Station, on Sunday, April 25, is bound to leave a trail of surprise and with the award producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher promising something different from previous editions, critics will have to wait till Sunday to see if their predictions were right or wrong.