MUMBAI: From wrongly naming the winner for the best film to presenters handling wrong cue cards, this year’s 89 Academy Awards did make news but, for several odds. Not only was La La Land named as the winner of for the best film instead of Moonlight but, reportedly presenters were given the wrong cue cards and though the mistake was corrected by the Academy. Video-on-demand streaming service Amazon won its first-ever Academy Awards on Sunday night, taking home three Oscar statues.
The service won awards for Manchester by the Sea taking home best original screenplay and best picture honors and Iran’s The Salesman. The wins for Amazon drew the praise of company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who was in attendance at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood and tweeting his congratulations to the winners.
Its rival platform, Netflix also won an Oscar for best documentary short, which went to The White Helmets, which the streaming service produced and distributed.
Amazon Studios released its first awards-hopeful movie at the end of 2015 with Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq and over the past year has spent aggressively to become a serious player in the indie film world.