A Few #OscarsSoDesi Highlights From Oscars 2016

Some remarkable desi moments were part of the 2016 Academy Awards red carpet and awards ceremony. For those who’d like a quick rundown of the desi highlights from this year’s Oscars, here’s a Monday morning roundup (check out the lists of all the nominees and winners online):

On The Red Carpet

In her Oscars debut, Priyanka Chopra gave red-carpet lessons like you’d expect from a Bollywood-Hollywood crossover success. She was a co-presenter with Liev Schreiber for the Best Film Editing category.

Sanjay’s Super Team didn’t win in the Animated Short Film category. But as Anupa Mistry writes in her interview with Sanjay Patel, the film was “one little bright spot” in a year where the Oscars were criticized for a lack of diversity.

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film. Her red carpet ensemble from Sana Safinaz was eye-poppingly luxe-looking and jewel encrusted, appearing on stage after Louis C.K.’s lengthy intro for the category.

Mindy Kaling voiced the character of Disgust in Inside Out, winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. Her dramatic Elizabeth Kennedy gown is part of a red-carpet look that makes her a best-dressed contender, according to Elle.

Dev Patel, perhaps best known for starring in the multiple Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, co-presented the Best Feature Documentary Film category with Daisy Ridley — resulting in the historic moments of 1) one desi presenting an Oscar to another desi when Patel announced Amy‘s Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees as the winners, and 2) a string of desi names making their way across the bottom of TV screens during the Oscars in the ticker tape thank yous from Kapadia. (#2 happened again when Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won for Best Short Doc.) best.doc.film

At The Ceremony

Watch that historic desi-on-desi handoff of an Oscar statuette in this video clip and hear what “Hackney boy” Asif Kapadia told the audience about his doc film on the life of singer Amy Winehouse. https://youtu.be/smvYwcEBT58 In case you missed the live broadcast of the stunning Bollywood-Hollywood star Priyanka Chopra presenting an Oscar, here it is:

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won her second Oscar for Best Short Documentary Film A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, about honor killings in Pakistan. In case the video clip below isn’t working, check out this post for her moving comments about the power of film and the subject of her documentary.

In Memoriam

Dave Grohl performed “Blackbird” during the memoriam to the renowned actors, filmmakers and craftsmen who passed away in 2015, including Indian-born British actor Saeed Jaffrey.

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