Written by Tom Deehan on Feb 27, 2017. Posted in Awards and Festivals / General Interest

Moonlight beats La La Land for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards

Barry Jenkins’s drama about a young African-American coming to terms with his homosexuality has beaten the predicted frontrunner, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, to receive Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards.

A technical error led announcers Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty to initially declare La La Land as the winner, before Producer Jordan Horowitz clarified the mistake and invited the Moonlight team onstage to collect the award.

Moonlight’s win will provide a profile boost for Florida, as the film was shot almost entirely in the Miami area. Florida’s production industry has faltered without a tax incentive and with the state film office potentially facing closure, but Jenkins – who grew up in Miami – was insistent on using locations from his childhood.

Daniel Capestany (War Dogs), Faren Humes (Our Rhineland) and Keisha Rae Witherspoon (Papa Machete) comprised the film’s locations team. Among the featured locations is the Libery Square housing project where Jenkins once lived.

Scenes were also filmed at Miramar High School and Jimmy’s Eastside Diner on Biscayne Boulevard. On an incredibly small budget of USD1.5 million, principal photography took 25 days to complete.

Alongside the Oscar for Best Picture, Moonlight won two more awards in the form of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali, who now holds the accolade of being the first Muslim actor to receive an Oscar.

Full list of winners:

Best picture:
Moonlight (WINNER)
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea

Lead actor:
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (WINNER)
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Lead actress:
Emma Stone, La La Land (WINNER)
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Supporting actor:
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (WINNER)
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Supporting actress:
Viola Davis, Fences (WINNER)
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Best director:
La La Land, Damien Chazelle (WINNER)
Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins
Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan
Arrival, Denis Villeneuve

Animated feature:
Zootopia, Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Clark Spencer (WINNER)
Kubo and the Two Strings, Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner
Moana, John Musker, Ron Clements and Osnat Shurer
My Life as a Zucchini, Claude Barras and Max Karli
The Red Turtle, Michael Dudok de Wit and Toshio Suzuki

Animated short:
Piper, Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer (WINNER)
Blind Vaysha, Theodore Ushev
Borrowed Time, Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj
Pear Cider and Cigarettes, Robert Valley and Cara Speller
Pearl, Patrick Osborne

Adapted screenplay:
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins; Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney (WINNER)
Arrival, Eric Heisserer
Fences, August Wilson
Hidden Figures, Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi
Lion, Luke Davies

Original screenplay:
Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan (WINNER)
20th Century Women, Mike Mills
Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan
La La Land, Damien Chazelle
The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou

Cinematography:
La La Land, Linus Sandgren (WINNER)
Arrival, Bradford Young
Lion, Greig Fraser
Moonlight, James Laxton
Silence, Rodrigo Prieto

Best documentary feature:
O.J.: Made in America, Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow (WINNER)
13th, Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick and Howard Barish
Fire at Sea, Gianfranco Rosi and Donatella Palermo
I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck, Remi Grellety and Hebert Peck
Life, Animated, Roger Ross Williams and Julie Goldman

Best documentary short subject:
The White Helmets, Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara (WINNER)
4.1 Miles, Daphne Matziaraki
Extremis, Dan Krauss
Joe’s Violin, Kahane Cooperman and Raphaela Neihausen
Watani: My Homeland, Marcel Mettelsiefen and Stephen Ellis

Best live action short film:
Sing, Kristof Deak and Anna Udvardy (WINNER)
Ennemis Interieurs, Selim Azzazi
La Femme et le TGV, Timo von Gunten and Giacun Caduff
Silent Nights, Aske Bang and Kim Magnusson
Timecode, Juanjo Gimenez

Best foreign language film:
The Salesman, Iran (WINNER)
A Man Called Ove, Sweden
Land of Mine, Denmark
Tanna, Australia
Toni Erdmann, Germany

Film editing:
Hacksaw Ridge, John Gilbert (WINNER)
Arrival, Joe Walker
Hell or High Water, Jake Roberts
La La Land, Tom Cross
Moonlight, Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon

Sound editing:
Arrival, Sylvain Bellemare (WINNER)
Deep Water Horizon, Wylie Stateman and Renee Tondelli
Hacksaw Ridge, Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright
La La Land, Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
Sully, Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

Sound mixing:
Hacksaw Ridge, Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace (WINNER)
Arrival, Bernard Gariepy Strobl and Claude La Haye
La La Land, Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth

Production design:
La La Land, David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco (WINNER)
Arrival, Patrice Vermette, Paul Hotte
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock
Hail, Caesar!, Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh
Passengers, Guy Hendrix Dyas, Gene Serdena

Original score:
La La Land, Justin Hurwitz (WINNER)
Jackie, Mica Levi
Lion, Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka
Moonlight, Nicholas Britell
Passengers, Thomas Newman

Original song:
City of Stars, La La Land — Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (WINNER)
Audition (The Fools Who Dream), La La Land — Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Can’t Stop the Feeling, Trolls — Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster
The Empty Chair, Jim: The James Foley Story — Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting
How Far I’ll Go, Moana — Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Makeup and hair:
Suicide Squad, Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson (WINNER)
A Man Called Ove, Eva von Bahr and Love Larson
Star Trek Beyond, Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo

Costume design:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Colleen Atwood (WINNER)
Allied, Joanna Johnston
Florence Foster Jenkins, Consolata Boyle
Jackie, Madeline Fontaine
La La Land, Mary Zophres

Visual effects:
The Jungle Book, Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon (WINNER)
Deepwater Horizon, Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton
Doctor Strange, Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli and Paul Corbould
Kubo and the Two Strings, Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould