The most infamous Oscars incident in recent years has undoubtedly been the Best Picture mix-up of 2017 when La La Land was accidentally announced as the winner when Moonlight was the film that had actually won.
There were plenty of jokes made at this year’s ceremony referring back to the incident but there is something of a sense of despondency with what happened given Barry Jenkins, the screenplay writer and director of Moonlight, wasn’t able to make a proper speech in accepting the award given all the confusion on stage at the time.
Fortunately, that has been rectified this weekend at South by Southwest (SXSW).
At a keynote address at the film festival, Jenkins read from the Oscars speech he would have delivered if Moonlight had been correctly announced as the Best Picture Academy Award winner:
“Tarell [Alvin McCraney, co-writer on Moonlight] and I are Chiron. We are that boy. And when you watch Moonlight, you don’t assume a boy who grew up how and where we did would grow up and make a piece of art that wins an Academy Award — certainly don’t think he would grow up to win Best Picture. I’ve said that a lot and what I’ve had to admit is that I placed those limitations on myself. I denied myself that dream — not you, not anyone else — me. And so, to anyone watching this who sees themselves in us, let this be a symbol, a reflection that leads you to love yourself. Because doing so may be the difference between dreaming at all and somehow, through the Academy’s grace, realizing dreams you never allowed yourself to have.”
You can watch it here:
