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Oscars 2025 latest: After parties under way; Brutalist actor defies cue to leave stage; Demi Moore unexpectedly misses out

Oscars 2025 latest: After parties under way; Brutalist actor defies cue to leave stage; Demi Moore unexpectedly misses out

Sky News03-03-2025

Backstage highlights: From Mikey Madison's puppies to Adrien Brody's grandparents
By Lauren Russell, news reporter
After seeing off the competition and collecting their statuettes, the winners at this year's Academy Awards head to the winners' room.
Here are some of those backstage highlights:
Anora director calls for decriminalisation of sex work
Anora director Sean Baker said his last four films have covered the topic of sex work, with his latest - which just scooped five gongs at the Oscars - being the culmination of his work.
Asked what his message is to those who criticise sex workers, Baker said: "I have been pretty outspoken about my stance on sex work.
"It is our oldest profession, yet it has an incredibly unfair stigma attached to it, and what I have been trying to do with my films is chip away at that very unfair stigma
"Personally I think it should be decriminalised and through my work through humanising my characters... it will help do that."
Adrien Brody honoured his grandparents in The Brutalist
Taking one of the big three awards of the night, Adrien Brody said appearing in The Brutalist gave him the opportunity to be a part of something with "importance".
The actor, who has Jewish family, said he was able to honour his grandparents in the film - which focuses on a Hungarian-Jewish architect who escapes the Holocaust and rebuilds his life in the US.
"My grandparents' struggles and their loss and their resilience paved a way for my own good fortune, and I had an opportunity to honour them in this film," he said.
Mikey Madison's new furry friends will help keep her feet on the ground
Still high off her win for best actress, Anora's Mikey Madison said she never thought anything like this would happen in her lifetime.
"I dreamed of being an actress that could be in a film like Anora. [It is a] huge honour, one that will sink in later down the line," she said.
Quizzed on what she thinks the future holds for her, the actress said she did not know her long-term plans, but tonight she needs to go back to being a dog parent.
She said: "Tonight I will go home to my new puppies and probably clean up their mess, and it will bring me right back down to earth."

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A Useful Ghost: Recognised in Cannes, Thai director hopes film stirs political debate at home
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A Useful Ghost: Recognised in Cannes, Thai director hopes film stirs political debate at home

When Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke became the first Thai director to win the Critics Week's Grand Prize in May, he paid an unusual tribute. 'I would like to dedicate this award to all the ghosts in Thailand,' he told the audience. Ratchapoom's film, A Useful Ghost, tells the story of a man whose wife dies after falling ill from dust pollution, and whose spirit returns by possessing a vacuum cleaner. It is a quirky story full of symbolism and dark humour that explores power and political oppression in Thailand. 'One of the main intentions for the film would be [to talk about] how we deal with injustice in the past,' says Ratchapoom. 'There's so many people who suffered, who got punished, who disappeared,' he adds, referring to Thailand's turbulent political history, marked by military coups, protests and deadly crackdowns. A Useful Ghost's success comes at a time of increased optimism about Thailand's film industry. Domestic productions are increasingly driving box office sales, claiming a greater share of ticket sales than Hollywood movies, and achieving success abroad. This includes the 2024 release of How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, which broke records for Thai film in neighbouring countries, and became the first Thai film shortlisted for the international feature film at the Oscars. The Thai government, keen to foster the country's film sector, has launched a $6.4 million film fund to support productions. Censorship rules are also being relaxed - though content that may affect the monarchy remains prohibited. The powerful royal family is shielded from criticism by a strict lese majesty law, which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years. Ratchapoom says he is unsure what kind of reaction his film will generate when it premiers in Thailand. 'I think it will cause some discussion,' he said. The film touches on history some would prefer to forget but which, over recent years, younger people have grown increasingly keen to uncover. 'Trying to unearth what is censored or suppressed is one way to fight the authoritarian,' said Ratchapoom. 'History is one of the battlefields.' Ratchapoom, 38, grew up in a Thai Chinese family in Bangkok, in a household full of film. His father, who had a small business, was obsessed with watching movies, mostly from the US and Hong Kong. Ratchapoom would pour over his dad's film magazines in his spare time, and seek out international releases at pirate DVD shops in Bangkok's Chatuchak market. He went on to study film at Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, and worked as a TV script writer before gaining international recognition with his short film Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall, about a transgender sex worker who goes undercover as a spy, which won the Junior Jury award at Locarno film festival in 2020. Ratchapoom began writing A Useful Ghost in 2017, three years after the military seized power in a coup, arresting its critics, and pressuring news outlets into self-censorship. The film's obsession with memory and mind control is inspired by a creeping trend that emerged under the junta: the destruction of monuments commemorating the 1932 revolution, when the absolute monarchy was overthrown and democracy introduced to Thailand. One plaque, which had laid on the ground in Bangkok for decades, was replaced in 2017 with a new monument that read: 'To love and respect the Buddhist trinity, one's own state, one's own family, and to have a heart faithful to your monarch, will bring prosperity to the country'. In A Useful Ghost the destruction of monuments creates dust, a reference to Thailand's continued air pollution crisis. But dust is also a symbol for 'powerless people who are voiceless', said Ratchapoom. 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Thailand is no longer ruled by former military generals, following elections in 2023, but Ratchapoom does not feel hopeful about Thailand's politics. Under the junta, there was at least a sense that 'there's every reason to fight, to resist', he said. Such momentum has dissipated. He does, however, feel more hopeful about the state of Thailand's film industry. 'I believe that in the next few years there will be more exciting projects, films or series coming off Thailand,' he said. The film's premier in Thailand and elsewhere is yet to be confirmed. Ratchapoom hopes it will open fresh debate. 'I hope these things that I talk about - the silenced and suppressed past, the injustice in the past – could be brought up or unearthed and people will start like talking about it again.'

Should family history, however painful, be memorialised forever?
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