The 97th annual Academy Awards have concluded with a near-sweep for the indie darling Anora, which won five of the six categories it was nominated in.
Many of those wins came in the most competitive fields of the night: Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing.
And at the conclusion of Sunday’s awards ceremony, Anora also scored the biggest prize of all, Best Picture.
It trounced the duelling musicals Emilia Perez and Wicked, which received 13 and 10 nominations, respectively — but won only two Oscars apiece.
It also proved to be a bigger crowd-pleaser among the Academy voters than another independent film favourite, The Brutalist, which picked up three wins out of 10 nominations.
But some of the biggest takeaways of the evening did not come in the final tally of who gobbled up the most Oscars. Instead, they came in the ideals espoused on the Oscars stage: bold statements underscoring the need for justice and an acknowledgement of our shared humanity.
Here are five major themes that emerged from tonight’s Oscar awards.
No Other Land’s powerful message about ethnic cleansing
One of the biggest surprises of the night came in the competitive Best Documentary Feature category, when the film No Other Land was named the winner.
The film chronicles the destruction of the Palestinian hamlets of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank, where one of the film’s directors, Basel Adra, is from.
Adra teamed up with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham to capture the violent attacks that Israeli settlers launch on Masafer Yatta, pushing its Palestinian residents from their homes and burning structures to the ground.
The film also captures the growing — but sometimes tense — friendship between Adra and Abraham, as they navigate the restrictions Palestinians in the West Bank face.
Despite the film racking up accolades at film festivals around the world, no distributor stepped forward to give the documentary a wide release in the United States. To qualify for Sunday’s Oscars, the filmmakers had to arrange a one-week screening at New York’s Lincoln Center.
But the filmmakers did not focus on those hurdles when they took the Oscar stage to accept their prize. Instead, they kept their remarks centred on the continuing death and destruction Palestinians face in Gaza and the West Bank.
“ About two months ago, I became a father,” Adra told the audience.
“And my hope to my daughter [is] that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now — always fearing settler violence, home demolitions and forcible displacements that my community Masafer Yatta is living and facing every day under Israeli occupation.”
“No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades,” Adra explained. “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Abraham, meanwhile, directed his comments specifically at the largely American audience watching the Academy Awards.
“The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” Abraham added, to applause. “Can’t you see that we’re intertwined — that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
Anora puts sex workers’ humanity in the spotlight
With its five wins, Anora also cast a spotlight on a misunderstood and often stereotyped community: sex workers.
The film follows the story of a Russian American stripper named Anora, who lives a precarious existence in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. When the young son of a Russian oligarch takes a shine to her, Anora starts to imagine a better life for herself — and when he proposes marriage, she accepts.
But things fall apart when the young man’s parents demand the marriage be annulled — and the son flees, leaving Anora to confront the consequences alone.
This is not the first film from director Sean Baker to focus on sex workers. His 2015 film Tangerine, shot entirely on iPhones, follows a pair of transgender sex workers on Christmas Eve. It proved to be one of his breakout hits.
Baker acknowledged the ways sex workers and other people on the margins of society shaped his work in one of his many acceptance speeches on Sunday night.
“I want to thank the sex worker community. They have shared their stories. They have shared their life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect,” Baker said. “I share this with you.”
Mikey Madison, Anora’s leading lady, echoed his appreciation with gratitude of her own.
“I also just want to again recognise and honour the sex worker community,” she said as she accepted the Best Actress trophy.
“I will continue to support and be an ally. All of the incredible people — the women I have had the privilege of meeting from that community — has been one of the highlights of this entire incredible experience.”