The winners of the film were not only expected, but should go on to Oscar glory.
Every year, Hollywood expects the Producers Guild Awards winner to make an Oscar preview for Best Picture. That’s because in the 12 years since both groups expanded their list of top prizes (the PGA 10 mandates, to which Oscar will return next year) and adopted preferential voting, only three times the winners don’t line up – PGA winners “ 1917, ”“ La La Land ”and“ The Big Short ”did not win the award for best film.
These differences made sense, because in each case a smaller, low-budget film (“Parasite”, “Moonlight” and “Spotlight”) took Oscar home for a film of scale and scope. And as expected, the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Best Film Producer this year went to Chloé Zhao’s magical journey, “Nomadland”, voted by the 8,000 members of the guild. The vanguard of Searchlight stands out in a field of small films, as it continues to rack up victories on its way to multiple Oscars on April 25.
“We are proud to have produced a film about the community and what connects us,” said producer Peter Spears, who with producer star Frances McDormand brought Jessica Bruder’s book to Zhao to adapt it into a film.
If there was a turning point in the race for the Oscars, this was a chance to mark a change in momentum for the disappearing Aaron Sorkin Best Picture nominee, “The Chicago Trial 7”. But it did not happen. As usual, the PGA Awards (presented by an energetic Tracee Ellis Ross) imported a series of Oscar nominees to present awards or to present the 10 nominees for cinema, including Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm “), Carey Mulligan (” Promising young woman “), Steven Yeun (” Minari “), Riz Ahmed and Paul Raci (” Sound of Metal “), Daniel Kaluuya (” Judas and the Black Messiah “), Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) and Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”).
This year, three PGA film candidates did not reach the Oscar for best film: those nominated for the SAG Ensemble “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “One Night in Miami”, as well as “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” by Baron Cohen (Amazon), who won Adapted Screenplay at the WGA Awards on Sunday (where “Nomadland” was not eligible), along with Emerald Fennell, for his original screenplay for “Promising Young Woman”, who won “The Trial of the Chicago 7” by Sorkin. Their WGA wins boost them in their respective runs for the Screenplay Oscar, if not for Best Picture.
Those who still hope to reduce the winning streak of “Nomadland” will look at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (April 4) and BAFTAs (April 11), where several films have a home team advantage: “O Pai”, ” Som do Metal ”and“ Promising young woman ”.
“My octopus teacher”
Netflix
The other PGA awards were also not a surprise: Pixar’s “Soul” won the Best Animated Film Award for Cinema, as is likely to happen on Oscar night. (Eight out of 12 PGA winners have won Oscars since 2009.) Out of 153 non-fiction entries, South African heart-puller “My Octopus Teacher” (Netflix) won the award for best documentary producer, winning the only other nominated for an Oscar in the category, the favorite of the critic “Time” (Amazon Studios). Previous winners in this category, “OJ: Made in America”, “Amy” and “Searching for Sugar Man”, all won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Many producers at the PGA event touched on the challenges presented by the pandemic, which required new levels of safety and care protocols. “The term producer had a much broader feeling in my mind – a much bigger role,” said Chris Licht of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”. Liz Tigelaar remembered the late director Lynn Shelton, who directed the fiery ending to “Little Fires Everywhere” and appeared in the In Memoriam section along with Tom Pollock, Stuart Cornfeld, Buck Henry, Irrfan Khan, Carl Reiner, Kirk Douglas, Gene Reynolds, Fred Silverman, Steve Bing, Allan Burns, Ronald Schwary, Jamie Tarses and more.
2020, said Anthony Mackie, “brought a seemingly endless series of losses.”
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