Oscars change edited version of ceremony after protests over cutting victory from Ukraine documentary – News

After protests from Ukraine, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will re-edit the abridged version of Sunday’s Oscar ceremony to reinstate the victory of “20 Days in Mariupol” in the Best Documentary category.

Traditionally, the ceremony, which this year, with breaks, lasted almost three and a half hours, is edited in a 90-minute version that includes between 12 and 15 of the 23 categories that is sent for a single delayed broadcast internationally on channels with the direct rights to Hollywood’s big night.

RTP1 plans to show the subtitled summary at midnight from Saturday to Sunday.

According to Deadline, the Ukrainian public channel Suspilne TV protested after discovering that the original summary left out the first victory of a Ukrainian film at the Oscars and the moving speech by its director Mstyslav Chernov.

The ceremony was broadcast live from one o’clock on Monday morning in the country, which limited its audience. The channel intended to show the 90-minute version in prime time on the same day, but contacted Disney after discovering the category cut.

“Our team was shocked and deeply disappointed when we did not see the Best Documentary category in the international version, where ’20 Days in Mariupol’ was rightly awarded. Mstyslav Chernov’s powerful speech emphasized the unity between Ukraine and the world, which makes it even more disappointing to see this moment full of truth and power excluded from the version distributed to global channels”, highlighted Lukian Halkin, executive producer of the channel TV Suspilne Kultura .

Contacted by Deadline, this person reinforced the concern, especially since last year’s summary included the category, which had as winner “Navalny”, the film about the leader of the Russian opposition, with a political speech by his wife, Yulia Navalnaya.

And he recalled: “’20 Days in Mariupol’ is not just an exceptional documentary, it is a unique testimony about Russian crimes, and the entire team literally risked their lives to film it. That’s why it seems extremely important to have this event history and the historical speech of Mstyslav Chernov in all versions”.

According to Deadline, the Academy agreed with this position and all international channels will receive an updated version of the summary and not just the Ukrainian Suspilne TV.

According to the publication’s sources, there was no political motivation behind the cut: the Academy, with the cooperation of the ceremony’s producers, decided which categories were left out and this process took place after the announcement of the nominations, on January 23, but before the ceremony on March 10th.

With its Portuguese premiere on the TVCine Edition channel on April 5th at 10pm, “20 Days in Mariupol” portrays a team of journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol after the invasion of Russia who struggle to continue their work of documenting the atrocities of war.

“I’m the only director here who wishes I had never made this film,” said Mstyslav Chernov upon accepting the Oscar, stating that he would have preferred that Russia had never invaded Ukraine and occupied its cities, and that it had never taken civilian or military hostages. .

“But I can’t change history or the past”, he continued. “All together, however, we can make History take the right direction and the truth endures.”

The journalist and director also called for the inhabitants of Mariupol to never be forgotten. And he concluded: “Cinema creates memory and memory makes History.”

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