On the red carpet, the directors of the Oscar-winning short film “Two Distant Strangers” honored the Black Americans killed by police who inspired their film.
Directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe won Best Live Action Short for the Netflix film that follows a Black man caught in a time loop who is repeatedly killed by police. They accepted the award in black-and-yellow tuxedos, the lining of which was embroidered with the names of people who died at the hands of police, including Philando Castile, Tamir Rice and Daunte Wright.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the tuxedos were made by controversial fashion house Dolce and Gabbana, which has been accused of anti-Black and anti-Asian racism.
In “Two Distant Strangers,” the protagonist, played by rapper Joey BadA$$, is forced to relive the day he was killed by a White police officer. The visceral film — one whose protagonist dies in ways similar to real people who’ve died at the hands of police — has been criticized for the unflinching violence experienced by its Black lead.
In his speech, Free, who also wrote the film, noted that Black Americans are disproportionately killed by police and implored the audience not to be “indifferent to our pain” in the wake of police killings.
Theirs was one of several references made to police killings and anti-Black racism throughout the ceremony. Regina King, who opened the show, said that “if things had gone differently in Minneapolis,” referencing the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, convicted in the murder of George Floyd, she “might have traded in [her] heels for marching boots.” And Tyler Perry, who won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ humanitarian award, urged viewers to “refuse hate.”