“Long live independent films!” – Anora director, Sean Baker
The 97th Academy Awards took place last night in Los Angeles and Sidewalk’s Hollywood Awards Show Watch Party took place in Birmingham. Several of the nominees played at the Sidewalk Cinema during the previous year and while we didn’t have any Festival alum to root for (such as 2023’s Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All At Once and 2024’s Greta Gerwig for Barbie), there were still plenty of favorites competing for the gold.
Brady Corbet’s “monumental” achievement The Brutalist played at the Cinema January – February and was nominated for ten awards, taking home three: Best Cinematography for Lol Crawley, Best Music (Original Score) for Daniel Blumberg, and Best Actor for Adrien Brody.
Coralie Fargeat’s feminist body horror The Substance played last September and was nominated for five awards, taking home Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, and Marilyne Scarselli.
Gints Zilbalodis’ animated adventure featuring no dialogue, Flow, played in December and garnered two nominations, winning Best Animated Feature Film.
Jesse Eisenberg’s dramedy A Real Pain played November – December and received two nominations, taking home Best Supporting Actor for Kieran Culkin.
As for Oscar Nominated Shorts (which are playing at the Cinema until March 6), Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington’s The Only Girl in the Orchestra won for Best Documentary Short Film, Victoria Warmerdam and Trent’s I’m Not A Robot won Best Live Action Short Film, and Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi’s In the Shadow of the Cypress won Best Animated Short Film.
You can get tickets to see all of the Oscar-nominated short films at the Sidewalk Cinema here.
The true winner of the night was Sean Baker for Anora, which played in November. Nominated for six awards, it took home five: Best Actress for Mikey Madison and Best Film Editing, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Director, and Best Picture (along with Alex Coco and Samantha Quan) for Baker. It proved an historical night for the filmmaker, making him the first person in Academy Awards history to win four awards for the same film.
Other films that played at the Cinema that received nominations but unfortunately left empty-handed were Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, the much-anticipated remake of one of cinema’s most classic and adored films that played December – January, which received four nominations.
Dreamworks’ most recent animated hit, Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot, played September – October, received three nominations.
Sidewalk alum RaMell Ross’ poignant drama Nickel Boys played in February and received two nominations.
Aaron Schimberg’s psychological dark comedy A Different Man played in November and received one nomination.
Overall, and namely with the wins for Anora, it was a huge night for low-budget independent cinema as well as a push for the return and growth of movie theaters – both from the respective award-winning filmmaker and from host Conan O’Brien. With the latter’s skit CinemaStreams, he makes light of the current tradition of streaming movies at home or on a cellphone and introduces a newer and better method – watching them in a theater (what will they think of next!)
As for his multiple turns on the awards stage, Sean Baker took time to highlight the need for the theatergoing experience: “Watching a film in a theater with an audience…it’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home. And right now, the theater-going experience is under threat.” He continued, “Movie theaters, especially independently-owned theaters, are struggling, and it’s up to us to support them.”
Now is the best time for you to support the Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema as our annual Membership Drive kicks off and lasts the entirety of March. For more information, visit sidewalkfest.com/membership.