‘Navalny’ Gives Sundance Yet Another Documentary Film Oscar Winner

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Amazon MiniTV, a free-of-charge service within the Amazon shopping app and on Fire TV, will next month begin airing short-form teen romance series “Gutar Gu.” The show is produced by Guneet Monga and Sikhya Productions, whose “The Elephant Whisperers” recently won the Oscar for best documentary short. “We at Sikhya are super excited to work with director Saqib Pandor, transforming our well-received short film into its own web series! “Gutar Gu” – a new chapter in the story of Ritu and Anuj, dives deep into the many ups and downs of teenage relationships- navigating strict parents, dating protocols, and the innocence and moments of first love,” said Monga.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Veteran film producer Bob Yari (“Crash”) and music executive turned content maker Marvin Peart have formed WonderHill Studios, a film and production entity that will also offer independent theatrical distribtuion.  Yari and Peat privately raised equity for the new company, for which they will serve as co-founders and co-CEOs. The label will also dabble in film acquisitions and rights sales to foreign territories.  “WonderHill Studios is eager to fill a crucial hole within the theatrical and television space, while also focusing on diversity in cinema and television in front and behind the camera. We are dedicated to building a diverse C-suite, and delivering quality independent films to the theatrical marketplace,” Yari said. 

Michelle Yeoh made history when she became the first Asian woman to win the Best Actress Oscar at the Academy Awards earlier this month. The Malaysian film star told millions of watchers as she held the award for her stunning performance in the highly acclaimed film Everything Everywhere All At Once: "This is a beacon of hope and possibilities."

Oscar winner and Academy member Roger Ross Williams is saying publicly what many in the documentary community have stewed over privately – that the sums of money being spent on Oscar documentary campaigns has “gotten insane.” And Williams, a former Academy Governor representing the Doc Branch, says something may be done about it.

Peter Werner, Emmy-nominated TV director who won a Best Short Film Oscar in 1977, died suddenly this morning in Wilmington, NC from heart complications following a torn aorta.

Midsommar actor doesn't let its short length limit her hairstyles at all, so she's experimented with fun, abstract updos, like the high ponytail and faux baby bangs . On March 20, for the New York screening of her upcoming film A Good Person, the star's bob was slicked into a twisted updo that looks like a bow. The star at the New York screening. Her highlighted hair was slicked back into a high updo.

Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh's acting roots can be traced back to Manchester, as the city's Metropolitan university has revealed she graduated with a BA in creative arts in 1983.

Ke Huy Quan was on a mission. He’d just been named best supporting actor for his performance as Waymond Wang, the goofy husband of a laundromat owner in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and he wanted to experience the moment with Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, you see, was the filmmaker who cast him in his breakout role in 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” when Quan was 12 years old. So during a commercial break in the Academy Awards telecast, Quan, 51, went over to where Spielberg was sitting with his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, whom Quan hadn’t seen since they co-starred in “Temple of Doom” four decades earlier. After hugs all around, Spielberg put his hands on Quan’s shoulders and said, “You are now an Oscar-winning actor.”

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has renewed International Emmy-winning hit Indian series “Delhi Crime” for a third season. The streamer’s India operation has also renewed “Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives,” “Kota Factory,” “Mismatched” and “She” for third seasons. Netflix India has also commissioned a documentary on the life of hip hop artist and rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh who will deep-dive into the reasons behind his sudden disappearance at the peak of his career. The documentary will be directed by Mozez Singh (Disney+ Hotstar series “Human”) and produced by Guneet Monga and Achin Jain‘s Sikhya Entertainment, 2023 Oscar winners for “The Elephant Whisperers.”

After Jamie Lee Curtis won her first Oscar, she contacted her dog walker before anyone else. During an emotional interview on "Today," the 64-year-old actress explained the reason why she reached out to her dog walker first.

Eric Saindon picked up his first Oscar at the 2023 Academy Awards on Sunday evening (March 12) and went straight to the hospital afterward.

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny learned Monday from his lawyer that a film detailing his poisoning and political activism won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

Sarah Polley is already working on her next project.

Ke Huy Quan left the Oscars audience and viewers at home in floods of tears with his winners speech on Sunday night, as he made Hollywood history by becoming the first ever Asian man to take home the Best Supporting Actor Award. The 51 year old star triumphed in a star studded category, for his role as Waymond Wang, the metaverse travelling husband of Joy Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, in this year’s runaway success Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Oscars 2023 tonight (March 12), becoming the first Asian person to win Best Actress at the event.The ceremony took place at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre tonight, with Everything Everywhere All At Once taking home the most awards.Yeoh’s award for Best Actress was one of the film’s seven trophies collected, honouring her for her role as Evelyn Wang. “Thank you, thank you,” she said as she got up on stage to accept the award.

Michelle Yeoh made history as the first Asian woman to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards. It’s a triumphant and moving moment for the thesp who killed in her role as a time-traveling Chinese-American laundromat owner navigating an IRS audit and complex relationships with her husband and daughter in Everything Everywhere All At Once. It was her first Oscar nomination.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Naatu Naatu” became the first song from a Tollywood film to win best original song at the Oscars, hoofing its way past superstars like Lady Gaga and Rihanna in India’s version of a Cinderella story. The win went to veteran composer M.M. Keeravani, who co-wrote all the songs for the film as well as its score, and lyricist Chandrabose. Their triumph followed a highly energized song-and-dance performance of “Naatu Naatu” that was, by acclamation, one of the highlights of this year’s telecast. Keeravani delighted the audience by giving much of his acceptance speech to the tune of a Carpenters classic.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor CNN has scored its first Oscars win: “Navalny,” the harrowing film following Russian dissident and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny, took the prize for documentary feature film at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The documentary, directed by Daniel Roher, gained new relevance after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The CNN Films/Warner Bros. documentary is a fly-on-the-wall account of the rousing populist who was once a presidential candidate — and posed such a threat to Putin that Navalny was poisoned in a botched assassination plot ordered by the Kremlin in 2020. Navalny was detained in January 2021 and currently is serving a nine-year sentence in a Russian gulag. He has spent much of the sentence in solitary confinement.

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny got a loving message from his wife from the Oscar stage after the film about him won Best Documentary Feature.

As Alexei Navalny’s wife and daughter attend Sunday’s Oscars to honor Daniel Roher’s nominated documentary “Navalny,” his daughter, Dasha, delivered a touching message to her imprisoned father on the red carpet.“I miss him and I love him and we’re doing everything we can to get him out,” Dasha Navalnaya told TheWrap on the Oscars red carpet. “I’m just honored to be here to represent the Russian people who are fighting against authoritarian regime in the country and to get my dad out of prison.”While Roher admits attending the 95th Academy Awards feels “amazing” and represents a “terrific honor,” the director of the Best Documentary Feature nominee confirmed he is thinking of Navalny and that the Russian dissident is “with [him] in spirit.” “I don’t lose sight of the fact that I’m here because Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, is sitting in the Gulag six and a half hours outside of Moscow,” Roher told TheWrap.