And The Oscar Goes To…

All the signs are there pointing to a big night for Emilia Pérez, beginning with the Venice Film Festival where the three lead actresses, Karla Sofía Gascòn (El Senior de los cielos), Zoe Saldaña (Avatar, Lioness) and Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building), all share the Best Actress Award, afirst for that prestigious film festival.

At the Golden Globes, Saldaña’s show stopping singing and dancing performance of El Mal, won for Best Song, The genre busting, musical, drama, crime story, gender bending saga of physical, spiritual change and search for redemption, also won Best Film from France, as well as Best Motion Picture.

Legendary blockbuster filmmaker / director, James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) said; “Emilia Pérez is just not like any other film that’s ever been made. It’s bold, daring, a vision.” And that daring and vision has resulted in 13 Oscar nominations including for: Best Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, International Feature, Supporting Actress, Actress, Director and Picture.

Zoe Saldaña is a shoo-in to win Best Supporting Actress. She’s already taken honors at the Golden Globes, Critic’s Choice and BAFTA award shows. All that’s missing is a Nobel Peace Prize and Baseball’s MVP Award. Look for Zoe to bring down the house when she performs El Mal.  Zoe has shown herself to be a topflight action/adventure star in Avatar, Guardians of the Universe and my favorite TV series; Lioness. But as the morally conflicted lawyer, Rita Mora Castro, Zoe Saldaña brings her acting, singing and dancing talents in full, brilliant display that will surely garner her Best Supporting Actress honors.

Karla Sofía Gascón is the first trans person ever nominated for an Academy Award. As the arch criminal, drug cartel kingpin, Manitas, who is surgically transformed into Emalia Pérez, Gascón’s portrayal is eerie, chilling, disturbing, but ultimately sympathetic and one colored with humanity. Manitas is an evil dude who through his metamorphosis into Emilia, tries valiantly to cleanse his soul and find ultimate redemption as a human being…as a woman.

Right now, Gascón is the betting favorite to win best Actress, but she faces stiff sentimental competition from Demi Moore in The Substance. However, Gascón’s nomination has been plagued over a controversy revolving around some seemingly racist remarks she made on social media. Hollywood immediately responded by essentially blackballing her. She was excluded from Netflix’s marketing campaign for the film. Even some of her co—stars and director of the movie expressed extreme disappointment in her perceived racist remarks and distanced themselves from her.

Initially, Netflix refused to pay for Gascón to attend the Oscars but have since reversed themselves and are paying for her to attend the ceremonies. Could it be Netflix senses (as this writer does) Emilia Pérez is going to win a boatload of Oscars and it will be a huge feather in Netflix’s streaming platform cap?

This controversy also raises the question: Do we punish artists for offensive behavior or remarks outside of their art? I think not. Mel Gibson said awful things about Jewish people. He was not blackballed and went on to make Hacksaw Ridge and Apocalypto  to critical praise. Gibson subsequently apologized for the remarks and so has Karla Sofía Gascón for her unfortunate social media posts.

Hopefully, the dark cloud of controversy over the nomination of Karla Sofía Gascón will dissipate, and the Academy will judge her solely for her groundbreaking performance in Emilia Pérez. 

That performance by this talented trans person has cultural and social significance because in this current political climate where homophobia, and hatred of the LGBTQ+ community has been validated in Executive Orders signed in bold Magic Marker scrawls, a Best Actress Oscar for Gascón would send a much-needed ray of hope and light in these uncertain times.

Selena Gomez did not receive an Oscar nomination for her role as Jessi del Monte, the troubled wife of Manitas. She did receive acting nods from BAFTA and the Golden Globes and this often award snubbed actress who has grown from a tiny tyke on Barney, the Purple Dinosaur, to a teen star on the Disney Channel’s The Wizards of Waverly Place, to an international pop singing sensation to currently being the pillar in the acting trio of Steve Martin and Martin Short on Only Murders in the Building, has proven in her tough, dark performance in Emilia Pérez,she is more than ready to take on serious, demanding  dramatic roles and will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The Oscars are right around the corner, and it looks like a battle between Wicked and Emilia Pérez to take top honors. Will this be the year Latino Hollywood can at long last finally celebrate by grabbing the brass ring? Well, I echo Manitas’ cooly confident affirmation: “Bingo!”
The Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, air on Sunday, March 3, on ABC and stream on Hulu.

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The Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), a cornerstone event closing out the 2024 film festival circuit, has set the stage for what is shaping up to be an exciting 2025 awards season. Among the standout contenders is Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, which has captured attention with its daring storytelling, stellar performances, and a narrative that resonates deeply with audiences and critics alike. After a strong showing at Palm Springs, the film is already being touted as a potential awards-season juggernaut.

This past Friday, Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard was honored with the prestigious Vanguard Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The award was presented by to him by the film’s three leading stars—Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Zoe Saldaña. This recognition, arriving just days before the 82nd Golden Globes airing today, Sunday, January 5, 2025, has amplified excitement around Emilia Pérez and its prospects for awards season glory.

When the Golden Globe nominations were unveiled in December, Emilia Pérez made history with an extraordinary 10 nominations—the most ever for a film in the Musical/Comedy category. Including for the three female stars:

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Karla Sofía Gascón and Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture: Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña

The nominations have placed a bright spotlight on the film’s cast and creatives, as a strong performance at the Globes is often seen as a bellwether for Oscar success.

Here is the full list of Emilia Pérez’s Golden Globe nominations:

• Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
• Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language: Emilia Pérez (France)
• Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Karla Sofía Gascón
• Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture: Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña
• Best Director – Motion Picture: Jacques Audiard
• Best Screenplay – Motion Picture: Jacques Audiard
• Best Original Score – Motion Picture: Clément Ducol, Camille
• Best Original Song – Motion Picture:
  • “El Mal” – Music by Clément Ducol, Camille; Lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille, Jacques Audiard
  • “Mi Camino” – Music & Lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille

As the awards season officially kicks off, Emilia Pérez seems poised to be a defining presence. Whether this Golden Globes momentum translates to Oscar glory remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: all eyes are firmly on this groundbreaking film and its exceptional team.

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Emilia Perez starring Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascón and Selena Gomez, is a gender-bending, genre-busting, phantasmagorical, operatic, hyper theatrical, electrifying crime and redemption melodrama.

Saldana plays Rita Mora Castro, an attorney tasked with negotiating a sex change operation for Manitas Del Monte, an arch drug cartel criminal . In a dark, unsettling scene, we meet the mobster with Gascón eerily portraying Del Monte in heavy prosthetic make-up.

Del Monte is born again as Emilia Perez. She tries to make up for her previous evil ways by helping  grief-stricken Mexican citizens find loved ones who have disappeared, often at Manitas’ hands. It’s a nice try, but sometimes redemption is a bridge too far.

Emilia Perez is a powerful Latina centric film. Saldana showcases her singing and dancing talents. Gomez, as Jessi, Manitas’ clueless spouse, gives a surprisingly strong and tough performance proving she has the acting chops for more demanding dramatic roles. Gascón shines in the dual role of Manitas and Emilia.

 The three leads, Saldana, Gascón and Gomez all shared a Best Actress Award for their performances in the film at the Cannes Film Festival. They will all get Oscar nominations. Hopefully, they won’t cancel one another out.

Writer / director Jacques Audiard will, no doubt, be considered for an Oscar for Best Director, as well as the movie for Best Picture. Could this, at long last, finally be the year Latinos make their too often overlooked and snubbed presence known at the Academy Awards? Hope so, otherwise the Academy will be on the receiving end of an acid drenched “WTF were you thinking? ¡Fideo Loco! blog from yours truly.

Emilia Perez is streaming on Netflix.
Director: Jacques Audiard
Cast: Karla Sofía Gascón , Zoe Saldana , Selena Gomez , Adriana Paz , Edgar Ramirez
Running time: 2 hr 10 minCast:  

The post REVIEW: ‘Emilia Perez’: Can Changing Your Body Change Your Soul? first appeared on .

Filmed in Mexico, Zoe Saldaña who plays Rita, an overqualified and exploited lawyer who wastes her talents working for a large firm far better at whitewashing criminal garbage than serving justice. But an unexpected way out appears, the sort of offer she can’t refuse — to help feared cartel boss Juan “Little Hands” Del Monte – aka Manitas (played by Gascón) retire from his business and disappear forever. Manitas has a plan he’s been fine-tuning in secret for years, to become, at last, the woman he’s always dreamed of being.   

Following the movie’s Cannes debut, Selena Gomez who plays Manitas wife, Jessi del Monte, opened up about the nerves she was feeling. “I was very nervous because this is a project that is unlike anything I’ve ever done before,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in May. “Even though I have such a small part, it’s such a big and special project that I feel so lucky that I was able to be a part of it.”

Selena also recalled the audition process, where she said she “acted insane.” She told the trade publication, “[Audiard] wanted me to perform one of the numbers and I just surrendered and completely gave myself. I was, like, ‘Well, at least I could walk away and say that I did my best.’ When he asked me to be a part of it, I was so nervous but also so excited.”

The original songs for the film were contributed by mutli–grammy winning group, Camille, while its original score was provided by Clément Ducol. The choreographic sections of the film are designed by Damien Jalet.

The film premiered on 18 May 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or in its main competition section, where it won the Jury Prize and its female ensemble won the Best Actress award. The premiere date for Emilia Perez is set to August 21, 2024.

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The nine minutes standing ovation of French director Jacques Audiard’s latest film Emilia Perez at the Cannes Film Festival is a tribute to the Audiard’s vision and the three leads Karla Sofia Gascòn, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez who not only act in Spanish, but also dance and sing – it is a musical after all.

Emilia Perez is a film about cartel drug kingpin Juan “Manitas” del Monte’s  gender transformation into an elegant Spanish lady. It deals with heady topics like drugs, violence and psychology issues and at the end of the day, what money can, or cannot buy.  Saldaña plays Rita Moro Castro, a lawyer who is tasked with handling the legal matters of Manitas’ big shift from cartel kingpin to the women he has always been.  Selena Gomez plays Manitas’ wife Jessi, who after all is said and done, rekindles a relationship with a shady character, Gustavo (Édgar Ramirez) which just might unravel Emilia’s carefully laid family arrangements.

Gascòn, like her character in the film, is Spanish and also a trans woman in real life. This is the first film she has starred in as an actress after announcing her transition in 2018. Before that, she had a long career as a male actor.

Jacques Audiard was inspired for the idea of the musical from a chapter in a novel he read during the pandemic about a drug trafficker who yearns to change his identity.

Saldaña in the role of the lawyer gets to go back to one of her first artistic art forms of expression, dance. She has several dance numbers she performs in Emilia Perez as well as singing a couple of songs.  As for acting in Spanish, she is she is fluent. Although born in Passaic, New Jersey, when she was 10 years old her family moved back to the Dominican Republic for seven years.

Gomez, on the other hand told Vanity Fair in a recent interview, that the “Scariest thing was speaking in Spanish, for sure,” but what she ended up realizing, while singing in Spanish in the film, is that she sings better in Spanish than speaking it.

Audiard (winner of the Palme d’Or with Dheepan in 2015) started writing the film during the pandemic, after being inspired from a chapter in a novel about a drug trafficker who yearns to change his identity. The film has emerged as one of Cannes 2024’s biggest hits among critics and audiences alike.

Emilia Perez takes place in Mexico but was filmed mostly in France with a few location shoots in Mexico.  The film is set to release August 28, 2024

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