The real reason we care about Oscar season

A1 Digital India News: I attended the first Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. At a midnight screening on the city’s then-Ryerson University campus, Sacha Baron Cohen arrived on horseback at the premiere of Borat. Twenty minutes later the spotlight broke. Michael Moore climbed onto the chairs to try to fix it. “What’s going on here?” he asked the man. I remember thinking. Cohen then got up and did 45 minutes of in-character stand-up. The spotlight was never repaired. No one noticed him.

This was my introduction to awards season. Tuxedos? Champagne glasses? Arguments over which British actor gave the best performance in the royal drama and other supposed highlights of the season? Well, okay, those were part of it, too. But nearly two decades later, this Borat moment is the film-festival memory that sticks with me. A visionary cinematic genius, quick to adjust when the winds aren’t blowing in his direction.

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof made a film called The Seed of the Sacred Figure. Rasoulof served a substantial prison sentence in Iran for making a film critical of the regime. No one would confuse Rasoulof with Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen plays a foreign dictator. Rasoulof suffered under one.

Still, Rasoulof has continued to make films, including gathering actors in secret locations in Tehran earlier this year and secretly filming his latest script, then giving them an extra jolt with 2022 Woman is... The cleverly integrated real-life footage from the Freedom to Life protests was real. True. When Rasoulof learned shortly after his indictment that he could face an eight-year prison sentence, he decided it was too dangerous to stay in his native country.

When he met with dissidents he met in prison, he plotted an escape. He could flee to an unknown neighboring country, then seek asylum in Germany. He edited his own film in its entirety. (You’ll hear more of Rasoulof’s story in a later issue.)

By all accounts, Rasoulof is not a profane, sly British comic, Sitting in a restaurant near the New York Film Festival, casually describing his hair-raising flight from the IRGC, I might have been reminded of my experience with Borat – from TIFF. Ten years gone. Once upon a time, a quick-witted cinematic genius who adjusted when the winds weren’t blowing in his direction.

Because, at the risk of sounding a little grandiose or Oscar-obsessed, isn’t that the description of all of Hollywood? Isn’t any of us in this industry – or, really, any industry – carrying a lodestar? We have an idea. And we must keep moving forward, no matter what huge or dangerous obstacles stand in our way.

I think this concept enlivens the awards coverage you'll read in these pages over the next three months - stories about really bold ideas, trying to thrive in a crowded world of back-stabbing on eggshells. In this issue, for example, you'll hear about the inspired lunatics who created the prosthetics for Demi Moore in the instant artsploitation classic The Substance.

You'll learn how Sean Baker, one of the most versatile people to pick up a camera today, fulfilled a dream in the escort and gangster world of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn with Enora in a 28-minute set that goes from ridiculous to violent so quickly, you'll swear someone broke into the theater and drugged you.

You'll hear how Cory Michael Smith, a theater artist from Columbus, Ohio, came to the big screen in Chevy Chase in the 1970s. And much more in that spirit of adventure.

If this all sounds a little strange, don't worry, we're having a little fun, too. Like, crowds at European film festivals are tracked as if they were your A1C results — does that really mean anything?

Plus, wondering if the conclave could actually happen? We have the world's greatest Vatican experts to tell us, part of a regular voyeur feature we call The Watchers.

We'll also be running a regular feature this season called "The Snub I Can't Get Past," in which entertainment celebrities tell us about an Oscar oversight that still gives them goosebumps. We all have one. (Mine's hoop dreams. This stuff practically invented a new art form and it wasn't even named).

You'll also get to hear from some TV folks this week. Penguin's Colin Farrell can break down the Batman Universe like only he can. Kristen Bell talks about how she's preparing to date a rabbi in the hit Netflix show Nobody Wants This. Hannah Einbinder analyzes stand-up Talmud-level comedy in the Everything Must Go special.

I know it's easy to fall into the trap of awards. The endless self-congratulation, the design of our Saturday nights, the juxtaposition of which pieces of entertainment meet some arbitrary criteria, like Republic

A1 Digital India News: I attended the first Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. At a midnight screening on the city’s then-Ryerson University campus, Sacha Baron Cohen arrived on horseback at the premiere of Borat. Twenty minutes later the spotlight broke. Michael Moore climbed onto the chairs to try to fix it. “What’s going on here?” he asked the man. I remember thinking. Cohen then got up and did 45 minutes of in-character stand-up. The spotlight was never repaired. No one noticed him.

This was my introduction to awards season. Tuxedos? Champagne glasses? Arguments over which British actor gave the best performance in the royal drama and other supposed highlights of the season? Well, okay, those were part of it, too. But nearly two decades later, this Borat moment is the film-festival memory that sticks with me. A visionary cinematic genius, quick to adjust when the winds aren’t blowing in his direction.

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof made a film called The Seed of the Sacred Figure. Rasoulof served a substantial prison sentence in Iran for making a film critical of the regime. No one would confuse Rasoulof with Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen plays a foreign dictator. Rasoulof suffered under one.

Still, Rasoulof has continued to make films, including gathering actors in secret locations in Tehran earlier this year and secretly filming his latest script, then giving them an extra jolt with 2022 Woman is... The cleverly integrated real-life footage from the Freedom to Life protests was real. True. When Rasoulof learned shortly after his indictment that he could face an eight-year prison sentence, he decided it was too dangerous to stay in his native country.

When he met with dissidents he met in prison, he plotted an escape. He could flee to an unknown neighboring country, then seek asylum in Germany. He edited his own film in its entirety. (You’ll hear more of Rasoulof’s story in a later issue.)

By all accounts, Rasoulof is not a profane, sly British comic, Sitting in a restaurant near the New York Film Festival, casually describing his hair-raising flight from the IRGC, I might have been reminded of my experience with Borat – from TIFF. Ten years gone. Once upon a time, a quick-witted cinematic genius who adjusted when the winds weren’t blowing in his direction.

Because, at the risk of sounding a little grandiose or Oscar-obsessed, isn’t that the description of all of Hollywood? Isn’t any of us in this industry – or, really, any industry – carrying a lodestar? We have an idea. And we must keep moving forward, no matter what huge or dangerous obstacles stand in our way.

I think this concept enlivens the awards coverage you'll read in these pages over the next three months - stories about really bold ideas, trying to thrive in a crowded world of back-stabbing on eggshells. In this issue, for example, you'll hear about the inspired lunatics who created the prosthetics for Demi Moore in the instant artsploitation classic The Substance.

You'll learn how Sean Baker, one of the most versatile people to pick up a camera today, fulfilled a dream in the escort and gangster world of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn with Enora in a 28-minute set that goes from ridiculous to violent so quickly, you'll swear someone broke into the theater and drugged you.

You'll hear how Cory Michael Smith, a theater artist from Columbus, Ohio, came to the big screen in Chevy Chase in the 1970s. And much more in that spirit of adventure.

If this all sounds a little strange, don't worry, we're having a little fun, too. Like, crowds at European film festivals are tracked as if they were your A1C results — does that really mean anything?

Plus, wondering if the conclave could actually happen? We have the world's greatest Vatican experts to tell us, part of a regular voyeur feature we call The Watchers.

We'll also be running a regular feature this season called "The Snub I Can't Get Past," in which entertainment celebrities tell us about an Oscar oversight that still gives them goosebumps. We all have one. (Mine's hoop dreams. This stuff practically invented a new art form and it wasn't even named).

You'll also get to hear from some TV folks this week. Penguin's Colin Farrell can break down the Batman Universe like only he can. Kristen Bell talks about how she's preparing to date a rabbi in the hit Netflix show Nobody Wants This. Hannah Einbinder analyzes stand-up Talmud-level comedy in the Everything Must Go special.

I know it's easy to fall into the trap of awards. The endless self-congratulation, the design of our Saturday nights, the juxtaposition of which pieces of entertainment meet some arbitrary criteria, like Republic