Oscars weekend: Is politics clouding the partying?
LOS ANGELES — Oscars weekend is annually fueled by champagne, but this year, the political climate has somewhat muted the celebratory mood.
"You feel it," said Freida Pinto on Friday night at the Women in Film Pre-Oscar Cocktail Party, where stars including Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Brie Larson and Ava DuVernay kicked off the weekend.
Pinto cited President Trump's travel ban, which caused Academy Award-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi to opt out of attending Sunday's ceremony. "But if you're a conscientious person, you don't have to not celebrate, not party, not be part of the festivities. I don't think you can think about the thing that upsets you every single moment of the day," she said.
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Earlier Friday, directors of the five foreign-language film nominees, including Farhadi, issued an unprecedented advance statement condemning "the climate of fanaticism and nationalism" in the U.S. and other countries.
Pinto added: "I do believe that a lot of people, at least the friends that I have in this industry, are very aware of what is happening and are very disturbed by it. The most important thing is they're doing something about it."
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The Women in Film bash honored all 46 women, in front of and behind the camera, who have been nominated for an Oscar this year.
Inside the pary, Larson — who won her Oscar last year for Room — took the microphone, urging for those in attendance to veer from "industry talk" and probe "what's really going on with us, what worries us, what scares us, what we're excited about."
The upcoming star of Captain Marvel said: "Let's incubate all of this and make something amazing...artists are the ones that the politicians fear. That's always been the case."
"Right now more than ever, these kinds of gatherings become really important, become really powerful," added director Ava DuVernay. "Our ancestors have taught us how to fight. And we're in a fight right now. So we need to come together."
