It's not so common for the best performances to win an Oscar. Often, many other elements come into play, one of which is the star power of the nominee, her suitability for what, supposedly, a star should be—an indefinable category that, according to Jeanine Basinger, is characterized by "an exceptional physique, excellent talent, a series of personal gestures, a sex appeal "Palminable glamour… and the luck of being in the right place at the right time." Irish actress Jessie Buckley (Killarney, 1989) embodies some of these characteristics, but her meteoric career seems to exhibit an absolute disdain for the others.

In the early hours of Sunday to Monday, Amanda Villavieja (Barcelona, ​​1975), Laia Casanovas (Granollers, 1990) and Yasmina Praderas (Huesca, 1981) could win an Oscar for their work as sound designers for SiradoThe Catalan production directed by Oliver Laxe has won the Oscar for Best Sound for a Spanish film, marking the first time the Oscars have nominated the sound of a Spanish film, as well as the first all-female nomination in the 97-year history of the Academy Awards' sound categories. "It's very exciting," Villavieja summarized a few weeks ago during a video call with her fellow nominees. "We've broken through two barriers; it was very difficult." And there are two more to add: they are the first all-female sound team to win at both the Gaudí and Goya Awards.

The Oscar race is getting exciting for Catalan cinema. Sirado It has passed the final filter before the Oscar nominations and, as predicted, Oliver Laxe's film has entered the shortlist of fifteen films from which the five nominees for best international film at the Oscars will be chosen; and more: Sirado She is also shortlisted in the shortlist Best Sound (Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja, and Yasmina Praderas), Original Score (Kangding Ray), Cinematography (Mauro Herce), and Casting (Nadia Acimi and Luis Bértolo), the new category debuting at the next Academy Awards.

Palestinian activist, photographer and filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the documentary No other land, who won an Oscar a few weeks ago, has been released by Israeli authorities. Ballal was arrested on Monday after a group of Israeli settlers attacked him in the town of Susiya, in the southern West Bank, where the events depicted in the film took place.

After making a name for herself in European art-house cinema with the colorful and electric Sweat, which exposed the miseries of the world of influencers digital, the Swede Magnus von Horn now looks back on the past with lingering in the gloomy The Girl with the Needle, nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film for its portrayal of the moral darkness that spread through Denmark after the First World War. Marked by a precious scenic quality, the film finds its raison d'être in the rawness of its historical portrait, which encapsulates the emotional wounds of an entire continent in the disfigured faces of war veterans and in the study of the emergence of a network of clandestine adoptions.

The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles was the stage where the 97th edition of the Oscars was held this morning. Beyond the protocol of the carpet, the course of the gala and the speeches of the winners of the statuette, there was also room for surprises. These are some of the highlights of the most iconic awards in cinema.

The hectic weeks leading up to the ceremony of the Oscar, full of controversy, rivalries and solidarity for the fires in Los Angeles, have also been reflected on the red carpet. Neither silent luxury, Neither sheer nor a desire to go unnoticed, the nominees for the statuette have paraded with force with heterogeneous styles and a marked personality.

The always laughable anti-woke conspiracy mob is wrong in pointing out Nickel boys As the African-American share of the 10 nominees for best film at this year's Oscars, it is, rather, the experimental exception. By far the most formally risky of all the films in competition. It is filmed entirely in subjective camera, it alternates the protagonists' points of view without over-explanations, it has a complex structure with flashforwards and sometimes repeated scenes, displays a string of images of a much more sensorial and impressionistic character than narrative... All this makes this brave adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel that won the Pulitzer in 2019 fits much better into an ideal of poetry-cinema than prose-cinema. Not bad (in fact, very good!) for a film that will receive such massive public exposure.

The Oscars were held early this morning in an unusual gala, with different venues and filmed like a movie. The winners were Frances McDormand and Nomadland and, despite the party's coldness, it has given these moments for posterity.