'No to war and free Palestine': How politics took centre stage at this year's Oscars

WHETHER IT’S DOWN to the turbulent times that the world is living through right now, or the topics addressed by the award-winning films, this year’s Oscars certainly felt more political than they have in a while. 

Despite the belief from some that politics should be kept separate from the biggest night in Hollywood, others feel that art is inherently political and see the night as an opportunity for those in the entertainment industry to make a statement. 

In his opening monologue, host Conan O’Brien addressed viewers by saying they were all too aware “that these are chaotic, frightening times”.

“It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant. 31 countries across six continents are represented this evening, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something of beauty.”

The film that won most of the awards, One Battle After Another, explores the themes of political resistance, authoritarianism, immigration and intergenerational trauma, among others. 

Accepting the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, director Paul Thomas Anderson said he wrote the film “to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them”.

But, he added, “with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”

War and conflict was another topic that came up more than once. 

When Javier Bardem, who was co-presenting Best International Feature Film with Priyanka Chopra Jonas, reached the mic, the first words he spoke were: “Say no to war and free Palestine.”

He was met with cheers and applause from the Dolby Theatre. The Spanish actor was wearing a pin for Palestine and a larger pin that read ‘no a la guerra’ (say no to war) in dripping red letters.

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Artists4Ceasefire

A handful of other actors wore a new pin created by Artists4Ceasefire, a collective of filmmakers that have been calling for “a just and lasting peace” in Palestine and Israel since October 2023. 

Designed by Shepard Fairey, the pin features a dove carrying a lotus flower with a barbed wire stem, which the group says embodies “hope, resilience and a just peace.” 

One of the actors to wear the pin was Saja Kilani. She stars in The Voice Of Hind Rajab, which was nominated for Best International Feature Film.

It dramatises the final hours of five-year-old Hind, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024 along with members of her family and two ambulance workers who attempted to rescue her. One of its creators was unable to attend due to Trump’s travel ban.

Rajab had been trapped in a car after an Israeli army tank shot their vehicle, killing Rajab’s aunt, uncle, and three cousins.

The only other survivor, Hind’s 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamadeh, called the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) for emergency aid, before she was killed under the sound of machine gun fire. Hind then spent hours on the phone with dispatchers from the PRCS pleading for help before she was killed.

The film lost to Sentimental Value, a drama about the complicated relationships between a film director and his estranged grown-up daughters. Director Joachim Trier quoted US writer James Baldwin in his acceptance speech, saying “all adults are responsible for all children”.

“Let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously into account.”

‘Stop all of these wars now’

Later on, a Russian teacher who secretly documented his school becoming a war recruitment centre during the invasion of Ukraine called for wars to end. 

Pavel Talankin made the plea after winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film for Mr Nobody Against Putin.

Shot over two years, the film documents his experience as a school videographer recording his students at the primary school in Karabash, a mining town near the Ural Mountains, and what they are taught after Ukraine’s invasion. 

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Talankin, who now lives in exile in Europe having fled Russia in 2024, picked up the award alongside US co-director David Borenstein and producers Helle Faber and Alžběta Karásková.

In a powerful message, given in Russian and then translated by another crew member, he said: “For four years, we look at the sky for shooting stars to make a very important wish. But there are countries where, instead of shooting stars, they have shooting bombs and shooting drones.

In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.

Seemingly addressing the killing of US citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during protests in Minneapolis earlier this year, Borenstein said the documentary is about “how you lose your country”.

Gun violence

“What we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small, little acts of complicity,” he said.

“When we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities. When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it.

“We all face a moral choice. But luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”

Another powerful moment came when All The Empty Rooms won Best Documentary Short Film. The film memorialised the bedrooms of children killed in school shootings in the US.

“The four empty rooms in our film belonged to four young children who were all killed in school shootings: Hallie, Gracie, Dominic and Jackie,” director Joshua Seftel said.

He then passed the microphone to Gloria Cazares, whose daughter Jackie was nine years old when she was killed in the Uvalde school shooting in 2022.

“Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time. Jackie is more than just a headline. She is our light and our life,” she said.

“Gun violence is now the number one cause of death in kids and teens. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, it would be a different America.”

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