Jacques Audiard, the director of Emilia Pérez, has thanked “my expensive” Karla Sofía Gascón throughout his BAFTAs acceptance speech, regardless of her racist tweets scandal.
The French filmmaker was accepting the award for Greatest Movie Not In The English Language on the ceremony in London on Sunday night time (February 16). The Spanish-language musical tells the story of a transgender Mexican cartel chief (Gascón) who enlists a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña, who received Greatest Supporting Actress on the awards) to assist her disappear.
Final month, a sequence of offensive posts from Gascón’s social media accounts resurfaced, expressing hateful views concerning Muslims, the 2020 homicide of George Floyd and the Oscars. She has since apologised for the feedback and denied that she is racist.
She had change into the primary transgender lady to obtain an Oscar nomination and was additionally nominated for Greatest Actress on the BAFTAs, though she was notably absent from the ceremony on Sunday night time.
When Audiard took to the stage on the Royal Competition Corridor to just accept the prize, he went out of his strategy to personally thank most of the solid and crew of the movie, with the notable inclusion of Gascón.
“Above all, I want to thank all of the great artists who introduced this movie to life and who’re right here with us tonight,” he mentioned (by way of Selection). “My expensive Zoe, my expensive Selena, Giorgini, Paul, Juliet, Camille, Clement, Julia and your staff, but in addition you, my expensive Karla Sofia, that I kiss. I’m deeply happy with what we achieved collectively. Lengthy stay ‘Emilia Pérez’!”
Voting for the awards was open to BAFTA members between early January and February 11, that means that voters might have solid their ballots earlier than the controversy arose in current weeks.
Saldaña has spoken concerning the scandal herself, saying she was “nonetheless processing every little thing that has transpired”. She added: “It makes me actually unhappy as a result of I don’t help [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any destructive rhetoric in direction of individuals of any group.”
“I can solely attest to the expertise that I had with each person that was a component, that may be a half, of this movie, and my expertise and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender fairness,” she added. “And it simply saddens me.”
The movie’s different star Selena Gomez has additionally mentioned: “A number of the magic has disappeared. However I select to proceed to be happy with what I’ve executed and I’m simply grateful. I stay with no regrets, and I might do that film time and again if I might.”
On February 2, Gascón appeared on a TV interview emotionally defending herself, revealing she had obtained loss of life threats and abuse following the controversy.
In defence of her posts, Gascón mentioned that she depends on “irony, sarcasm and at instances exaggeration and naturally I exploit a useful resource to speak in third particular person, if what I wrote was written by somebody who thinks in a destructive method,” and that she is “clearly” a supporter of the Black Lives Matter motion.
In a three-star evaluation of Emilia Pérez, which obtained a complete of 13 Oscar nominations, NME wrote: “While its mix of influences make Emilia Perez distinctive, additionally they make it exhausting. The private influence of Emilia’s transition is undercut by a ridiculous music with lyrics about vaginoplasty, any grittiness from the drug cartel thread will get smoothed over by the schmaltzy sentimentality that surrounds it and the flashes of actual visible aptitude act are slowed down by the twisting, tiresome plot.”
“You’ve most likely by no means seen a film like Emilia Perez earlier than – and while there’s sufficient meat within the performances to make you considerably glad you probably did, you may not need to once more.”
