On the night of March 10-11, 2024, the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood hosted the 96th Academy Awards, the most prestigious American film award honoring the achievements of filmmakers in 2023.
The main award for Best Picture was expected to go to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, an epic biographical thriller about the creator of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer. The film, based on the documentary book by Kai Byrd and Martin Sherwin “Oppenheimer.
Cillian Murphy won Best Actor for his role in the winning film, and Emma Stone won Best Actress for her performance in Poor Creatures.
All the winners of the Oscars 2024:
Best Supporting Actor – Robert Downey Jr. for “Oppenheimer”
Best Supporting Actress – Dwayne Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
Best Foreign Language Film – “The Zone of interest”, Jonathan Glazer
Best Animated Film – “The Boy and the Heron”, Hayao Miyazaki
Best Short Animated Film – “The War is Over! Inspired by the music of John and Yoko”
Best Original Screenplay – “Anatomy of a Fall”
Best Adapted Screenplay – ” American Fiction ”
Best Cinematography – “Oppenheimer”
Best Editing – “Oppenheimer”
Best Feature Short – “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”
Best Short Documentary – “The Last Repair Shop”
Best Production Design – “Poor Things”
Best costumes – “Poor Things”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling – “Poor Things”
Best Visual Effects – “Godzilla: Minus One”
Best Sound – ” The Zone of interest ”
Best Soundtrack – “Oppenheimer”
Best Film Score – “Barbie” (Billy Eilish’s “What Was I Made For”)
Best Director – Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Best Feature Documentary
But the eyes of all Ukrainians were riveted on the Oscars in 2024 not only because of the interesting and unique films “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie” and “Poor Creatures” in their respective genres, but because of the film that embodied the tragedy of the whole of Ukraine that occurred with the full-scale military invasion of Russia.
The best feature-length documentary was 20 Days in Mariupol by Ukrainian director, war correspondent, photographer, photojournalist, videographer and writer Mstislav Chernov, who won the first Oscar in the history of independent Ukraine.
“20 Days in Mariupol” tells the story of a team of Ukrainian and Associated Press journalists who find themselves in the besieged city of Mariupol in 2022. They try to continue their work documenting the atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters left in the city, they capture images that would later become defining images of the war: the deaths of children, mass graves, a bombed-out maternity hospital, and other horrors.
After nearly a decade of covering international conflicts, including Russia’s war against Ukraine, Mstislav Chernov, a reporter for the Associated Press, is making his first feature film, 20 Days in Mariupol. The film is based on Chernov’s daily reports and personal footage of his own country at war. It is a clearly drawn, painful image of civilians under siege. The film also shows what it is like to report from a conflict zone, as well as the role and impact of such journalism around the world.
Mstislav Chernov has also covered the Revolution of Dignity, the war in eastern Ukraine, the aftermath of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, the Syrian Civil War, the battles of Mosul in Iraq, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including the blockade of Mariupol.
In addition to the triumphant Oscar award, 20 Days in Mariupol received:
– Audience Award, 2023, Sundance Film Festival
– Main Prize of the DOCU/UKRAINE national competition and the Audience Award, 2023, Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
– BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, 2024, BAFTA Film Awards.
Mstyslav Chernov has also received awards for this work:
– Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award,
– Giorgi Gongadze Award,
– Knight International Journalism Awards,
– Biagio Agnes Award, Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award,
– Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award,
– Free Media Awards,
and in 2022 was included in the ratings “People of NV 2022 in the Year of War” and “14 Songs, Photos and Art Objects that Became Symbols of Ukrainian Resistance” by Forbes Ukraine.
A historic speech by director Mstislav Chernov
In his historic Oscar speech, Mstislav Chernov said that he would have preferred never to have made such a film.
“I am grateful. But I’ll probably be the first director on this stage to say: I wish I had never made this movie.
I would like to be able to exchange this (shows the statuette) for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities. I would give all this recognition for the Russians not to kill tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainian citizens. I would give it to free all the hostages, the soldiers who defended our land, the civilians in their prisons.
But I cannot change history, I cannot change the past. However, we all together – and among you are the most talented people in the world – we can put everything in its place in history so that the truth will win. And so that the dead people of Mariupol and those who gave their lives will never be forgotten. Because cinema shapes memories, and memories shape history,” said Mstislav Chernov while receiving the Oscar in Los Angeles.
Interesting facts
– At the Oscar ceremony, Mstislav Chernov wore a black suit from the Ukrainian brand Indposhiv, with a yellow inscription “freedom” inside the blue-lined jacket.
– In 2023, Mstyslav Chernov, along with his colleagues Yevhen Malolhetka, Laurie Ginnant, and Vasylisa Stepanenko, won one of the most prestigious journalism awards, the Pulitzer Prize. The award was presented in the Public Service category for their coverage of Russia’s crimes in Mariupol.
– The journalists, including Associated Press reporters, left Mariupol on March 15 as part of a convoy that left the city after the opening of a humanitarian corridor. They were among the last media professionals to leave the city captured by Russian troops. Thanks to their photos and videos, the world saw the horrors of war in the besieged city.
Film as an object of copyright
Speaking of films, we cannot but touch upon the issue of authors’ copyrights to such a complex copyright object as a film, or, as it is defined by the current legislation of Ukraine, an audiovisual work.
As a reminder, according to the Law of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Rights”, in the current version as of January 01, 2023, as amended on April 15, 2023 (hereinafter – the Law), the authors of an audiovisual work are:
1) the director
2) the author(s) of the script and/or dialogues;
3) the author of a musical composition specially created for an audiovisual work, with or without lyrics, i.e., in essence, the author of soundtracks specially created for a film;
4) production designer;
5) director of photography.
At the same time, one and the same individual can carry out several types of relevant creative activity as an author of an audiovisual work. As we can see from the example of the authors of the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol, where the director, screenwriter (scriptwriter), and cinematographer are all the same person, Mstislav Chernov. The film was composed by Jordan Dykstra.
It is worth noting that unless otherwise provided by the relevant agreement:
– property rights to an audiovisual work are transferred from the authors to the producer of the audiovisual work from the moment the work is created, while the author of a musical work specially created for an audiovisual work retains the property rights to public performance and public communication of such a musical work separately from the audiovisual work;
– the authors of an audiovisual work and holders of property rights to other works that have been processed and/or incorporated into the respective audiovisual work with the permission of the said holders shall not have the right to prohibit reproduction, distribution, interactive provision of access, public display, public communication of such audiovisual work, rental of its copies, as well as its subtitling and dubbing (including dubbing).
It is also characteristic that authors who are not among the 5 authors of an audiovisual work listed above, whose works are included as an integral part of an audiovisual work (those created earlier and those created in the course of work on an audiovisual work), each retain copyright in their work and may independently use it within the limits not related to such audiovisual work.
So, as we can see, a film is a complex object of copyright law and each of its components, to the smallest detail, is the result of intellectual and creative activity of a large number of individuals – authors (copyright holders). And it is very important that such authors and everyone involved in the creation of such a complex work as a film know and understand what copyrights they have and how to dispose of them. We are always happy to provide relevant advice that will help you understand what rights a person involved in the creation of a film has and what such a person should do to protect their rights.
20 Days in Mariupol / copyright / intellectual property / movie / Oscar 2024
