While Sentimental Value, an apolitical family drama from Norway, was the movie the Academy Award voters chose for Best International Feature, actor Javier Bardem, who was presenting the award, took the opportunity to say, "No to wars and free Palestine."
Sporting a pro-Palestine button, Bardem was the only presenter to reference the war in Gaza, which ended in October, a contrast to previous years, in which speeches were made about the war with Hamas during the ceremony and on the red carpet.
This year, the commentary from those on the Oscar stage was mainly about domestic US politics.
Persecuted Iranian filmmaker neglected
Bardem did not take the opportunity his platform afforded him to mention the fact that Jafar Panahi, the director whose film, It Was Just an Accident, was nominated for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay, has been arrested repeatedly by the Iranian government and was recently sentenced to a year in prison in absentia in Iran for criticizing the government, a matter that might seem to be of interest to someone who takes an interest in human rights.
Mehdi Mahmoudian, one of the screenwriters of It Was Just an Accident, was arrested in January because of his support for the Iranian protest movement and was released after two weeks. No one thought his plight was worth bringing up during the awards.
While Sentimental Value was the favorite to win in The Best International Feature category, the more political films up for this award, such as It Was Just an Accident and The Voice of Hind Rajab, a Tunisian film about a Gazan girl who was killed in the war by a bomb fired from Israel, did not get much attention in the runup to the ceremony.
Motaz Malhees, one of the stars of The Voice of Hind Rajab, announced last week that he was not given a visa to attend the ceremony because of new regulations making it more difficult for Palestinians to enter the US.