Sherman becomes King as Lost Thing gets found by Oscar
Seesaw Films’ Emile Sherman and Ian Canning and their Bedlam Productions co-producer Gareth Unwin have won the Oscar for Best Picture for The King’s Speech; Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann’s The Lost Thing won in the Best Animated Short category.
The King’s Speech won the Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Colin Firth), Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler).
Sherman said in his thank you speech:
“To have been part of a film that’s touched and moved people so much all around the world has been just a huge privilege and we’re indebted to everyone standing behind us and you know, our financiers took a huge risk on this film. It’s not an obvious film to back, to our distribution partners, the Weinstein Company, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Momentum Pictures, and Transmission Films, your passion and commitment to this film, the UK Film Council, Aegis Film Fund, Molinare, Filmnation. Thank you to all our financiers and personally to my wife, Caroline, and my parents Brian and Gene for your love and support, my little boys, Milo, Zack, and Cy, thank you so much. Thank you.”
“I believe that this is the first time an independent Australian producer has been awarded the Oscar for Best Picture and we are just thrilled that Emile [Sherman] and his team have been recognised for this exceptional film”, said the executive director of the Screen Producers Association of Australia, Geoff Brown.
The Lost Thing was produced by Sophie Byrne at Passion Pictures, and suppported through Screen Australia’s Talent Escalator program.
“Winning an Oscar offers our Australian filmmakers fantastic recognition on the world stage. We are immensely proud of this remarkable achievement,” said Screen Australia CEO Ruth Harley.
Australian Kirk Baxter also received the Oscar for his editing work on The Social Network (with Angus Wall), and Dave Elsey (with Rick Baker) won Best Make-Up for The Wolfman.
The Lost Thing was not humoress – it was more about someone taking care of a lost thing, something we hope we’d all do. It was just a lovely film and that there was a place that the thing could belong was relieving.
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Emile’s mother’s name is Gene, not Jean.
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Great to see these very talented Australians do so well on the world stage, both creatively and commercially.
Congratulations Emile Sherman and all the team at See Saw Films, Transmission for a great campaign in Australia and of course their co-production partner Bedlam Productions in the UK. I know Geoffrey Rush also played a role behind the scenes as an Executive Producer.
It was also fantastic to hear the story behind Shaun Tan’s journey to an Oscar. Congratulations to him and Producer Sophie Byrne.
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