A facelift for the Academy: how A24 has made independent aura cinema succeed at the Oscars

It is said soon, but A24, the very young (they started their activity just ten years ago) independent film producer and distributor behind this year’s big Oscar winner, ‘Everything at once everywhere’, as well as of ‘The whale‘ (winner of the Best Actor award), has achieved a couple of milestones that the almighty would want for themselves majors. It is the first study that wins in all major categories and the first to get all actor categories as well.

There are nine statuettes, practically all of them from the front row, and doubling the next producer, Netflix, which took five with ‘No news at the front‘, all of them minor. Only ‘Everything at once everywhere’ has won seven statuettes, an achievement that no production company had achieved for ten years. This is the list of prizes that A24 takes home.

• Best makeup and hairstyling (‘The whale’)
• Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan for ‘Everything at once everywhere’)
• Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis for ‘Everything at Once Everywhere’)
• Best Actor (Brendan Fraser for ‘The Whale’)
• Best actress (Michelle Yeoh for ‘Everything at Once Everywhere’)
• Best Montage (‘Everything at once everywhere’)
• Best Original Screenplay (‘Everything at once everywhere’)
• Best Director (‘Everything at once everywhere’)
• Best film (‘Everything at once everywhere’)

And they could have been more: A24 had nominations in other films in its catalogue, such as ‘Close’, ‘Aftersun’, ‘Causeway’ and ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’. And it’s not the first time they’ve won an Oscar either (not to mention the rest of the year’s awards, from which ‘Everything at once everywhere’ has been sweeping): the production company has 15 Oscars in its windows to boast of throughout its career.

What does A24 have that everyone likes?

A24 has developed, since its inception, a personal stamp but it does not pigeonhole them in any type of film or genre. Some of the biggest hits from this company founded by industry veterans Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges are cinema indie pure strain (such as one of the first films he distributed, ‘Spring Breakers’ or one of his first international bombings, ‘The room‘), but they are not disgusting to genre cinema, especially horror.

It was one of the international distributors that dared with the very rare ‘Under the Skin’, for example, or with the extraordinary ‘Ex Machina’ by Alex Garland. One of her first international leaps was made with a pure horror film, ‘The Witch’, a year before starting to produce her own films. His is also the “discovery” of one of the great names of terror in recent years, Ari Aster, to whom they produced ‘hereditary‘ and ‘midsummer‘. Other interesting films that they have produced or distributed in recent times are ‘The lighthouse’, ‘In fabric’, ‘Uncut Gems’, ‘Lamb’, Men’, ‘Saint Maud’ or ‘The Green Knight’.

A24 is a very unique production company with a very marked personality, although its commitment to all kinds of films is clearly visible. But at the same time, it has enough range and power (it does not have the capacity to roll a blockbusters millionaire, but to have the most interesting actors in Hollywood) as to, in ten years of life, have won two Oscars for best film (the other, ‘Moon light‘).

Facelift for the Academy

And why does this matter to Hollywood? The answer is very simple: with broadcast audiences plummeting and having become thanks to recent events more of a talk of frivolous gossip that in a true celebration of cinema, the image indie gives the industry some credibility back. Of course, it’s all fake: we’re talking about the same industry that, with its passivity, allowed Brendan Fraser’s career to go into a decades-long hiatus, and now celebrates his performance in a “quality” movie (none of that stuff of mummies for kids).

Whether or not it will work for Hollywood remains to be seen, but the important thing is that A24 will do great to continue producing more and better films outside of the usual boring ultra-commercial channels. At the moment, Ari Aster’s new one is just around the corner, ‘Beau is afraid’, an unclassifiable dramatic comedy that is disturbing but far from pure terror, and in which it seems that Joaquin Phoenix gives it his all. At the Oscars next year we discussed it.