Sean Penn has criticized the organizers of the Oscars, accusing them of being cowards who, in his view, restrict the types of films that can be funded and produced. The 64-year-old actor expressed his sentiments at the Marrakech Film Festival, where he was honored with a career achievement award. Penn stated that his excitement for the Academy Awards is limited to rare instances. "The producers of the academy have shown remarkable cowardice when it comes to embracing the broader world of expression and, in fact, have largely contributed to limiting the imagination and various cultural expressions," Penn remarked during the festival. "I don’t get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards," he added, making exceptions for certain films that grace the ceremony, such as Sean Baker's The Florida Project, Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, and Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez, the latter of which is considered a favorite for this weekend's European Film Awards.
Penn's comments align with longstanding criticisms of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its lack of diversity among its members and the films it honors. In recent years, the academy has taken steps to reform and rebrand itself, but it continues to face criticism for not going far enough. Penn also praised Iranian-Danish director Ali Abassi and his latest film, The Apprentice, which faced challenges in finding an American distributor ahead of the US election in November. "It’s quite astonishing how fearful this 'business of mavericks' can be when they encounter a great film like that with outstanding acting," he said. "They, too, can be as afraid as a small-time Republican congressman."
In our review of The Apprentice, we noted: "While it mostly deals with known facts—frustratingly, there isn’t much we don’t know about Trump these days, making it a challenging task to say something new about Agent Orange—The Apprentice works best as a performance-driven portrait of so-called American exceptionalism. It’s not a great film, but it’s compulsively watchable, destined to polarize even those who despise Trump. It will be criticized for not being enough of a hit job by some; not political enough given the current climate by others." Read our full review here.
Penn continued: "Around the world, there is a demand for diversity—but not diversity in behavior, opinion, or language. I would just encourage everyone to be as politically incorrect as their heart desires and to engage in diversity by continuing to tell those stories." Among the films expected to be contenders at the Oscars next year are Baker’s independent drama Anora, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes earlier this year, Audiard's experimental musical Emilia Perez, and Brady Corbet's masterful American saga The Brutalist, which received rave reviews when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Source link: https://www.euronews.com
