Jacques Audiard, the director of Emilia Pérez, has thanked “my dear” Karla Sofía Gascón during his BAFTAs acceptance speech, despite her racist tweets scandal.
The French filmmaker was accepting the award for Best Film Not In The English Language at the ceremony in London on Sunday night (February 16). The Spanish-language musical tells the story of a transgender Mexican cartel leader (Gascón) who enlists a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña, who won Best Supporting Actress at the awards) to help her disappear.
Last month, a series of offensive posts from Gascón’s social media accounts resurfaced, expressing hateful views regarding Muslims, the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the Oscars. She has since apologised for the comments and denied that she is racist.
She had become the first transgender woman to receive an Oscar nomination and was also nominated for Best Actress at the BAFTAs, although she was notably absent from the ceremony on Sunday night.
When Audiard took to the stage at the Royal Festival Hall to accept the prize, he went out of his way to personally thank many of the cast and crew of the film, with the notable inclusion of Gascón.
“Above all, I would like to thank all the wonderful artists who brought this film to life and who are here with us tonight,” he said (via Variety). “My dear Zoe, my dear Selena, Giorgini, Paul, Juliet, Camille, Clement, Julia and your team, but also you, my dear Karla Sofia, that I kiss. I’m deeply proud of what we achieved together. Long live ‘Emilia Pérez’!”
Voting for the awards was open to BAFTA members between early January and February 11, meaning that voters may have cast their ballots before the controversy arose in recent weeks.
Saldaña has spoken about the scandal herself, saying she was “still processing everything that has transpired”. She added: “It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.”
“I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity,” she added. “And it just saddens me.”
The film’s other star Selena Gomez has also said: “Some of the magic has disappeared. But I choose to continue to be proud of what I’ve done and I’m just grateful. I live with no regrets, and I would do this movie over and over again if I could.”
On February 2, Gascón appeared on a TV interview emotionally defending herself, revealing she had received death threats and abuse following the controversy.
In defence of her posts, Gascón said that she relies on “irony, sarcasm and at times exaggeration and of course I use a resource to talk in third person, if what I wrote was written by someone who thinks in a negative manner,” and that she is “obviously” a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.
In a three-star review of Emilia Pérez, which received a total of 13 Oscar nominations, NME wrote: “Whilst its blend of influences make Emilia Perez unique, they also make it exhausting. The personal impact of Emilia’s transition is undercut by a ludicrous song with lyrics about vaginoplasty, any grittiness from the drug cartel thread gets smoothed over by the schmaltzy sentimentality that surrounds it and the flashes of real visual flair act are bogged down by the twisting, tiresome plot.”
“You’ve probably never seen a movie like Emilia Perez before – and whilst there is enough meat in the performances to make you somewhat glad you did, you might not want to again.”
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