Malala meets Hollywood royalty at Oscars luncheon

Tom Cruise lived up to his billing as the "last true movie star" as nearly 200 of this year's Oscar nominees gathered to celebrate - and size up their competition - at the Academy's boozy annual luncheon Monday.

In a room packed with A-listers such as Steven Spielberg and Cate Blanchett, there was no doubt Cruise remained the biggest draw, with a crowd of wellwishers from Hollywood moguls to Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai lining up to greet him throughout the event.

Cruise is nominated this year as a producer of Top Gun: Maverick, in which he also starred. The film is considered a growing frontrunner for the best picture Oscar - Hollywood's most prestigious prize. "It's been incredible... I just want to get people into theaters," Cruise told AFP. "But this is lovely," he admitted, motioning to the Beverly Hills ballroom, packed with Oscar nominees and Academy voters, and kitted out with giant golden statuettes and open champagne bars.

Pakistani activist Yousafzai, donning a Saniya Maskatiya outfits, attended as an executive producer of Stranger at the Gate, a short documentary about a US Marine veteran who plotted to blow up a mosque in his hometown. "It's surreal," she told the publication after meeting Cruise. "I've seen him on the screen and now I'm seeing him in person."

The 95th Academy Awards will be held on March 12. Academy voters this year handed out various nominations for box office smash hits such as Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - raising hopes that Oscars TV audiences will pick back up. "The awards gods have smiled on us - there's nothing we can do about that," joked Glenn Weiss, who is returning to produce next month's Oscars telecast ceremony.

During her luncheon speech, Academy president Janet Yang also reiterated her wish to leave behind the "unprecedented" controversy of last year, when Will Smith infamously slapped Chris Rock live on the Oscars stage before being banned.

"What happened on stage was totally unacceptable. And the response from our organisation was inadequate," she said. Smith was allowed to remain at the Oscars and accept his best actor prize after striking Rock, and was only later banned from attending the Academy Awards for a decade.

The Academy "must actively compassionately and decisively" in times of crisis, said Yang, to applause. After lunch, the names of all 182 attending nominees, plus directors representing their countries in the international feature film category, were read out, and the nominees posed for the traditional, giant-sized "class photo."

Everything Everywhere All At Once, a quirky sci-fi with a predominantly Asian cast which is many pundits' tip for best picture winner, earned the most nominations this year with 11, and its cast received many of the loudest cheers on Monday. "We paid them a lot of money to do that!" joked best actor - female nominee Michelle Yeoh, describing the indie film's giant success as "a dream come true."

Colin Farrell and Austin Butler, best actor nominees and stars of best picture rivals "The Banshees of Inisherin" and "Elvis," also drew raucous cheers from the luncheon crowd.

'American dream'

Notable by her absence Monday was Andrea Riseborough, who controversially earned a coveted best actress nomination after an intense, last-minute social media campaign mounted by prominent celebrities.

But among the nominees present was Kazuo Ishiguro, nominated for writing the screenplay of British drama Living, some five years after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm.

"This is very different... This is like some version of the American dream. So many people dream about being here," he said. "The Oscars are more like an election - there's a lot more campaigning" than for other famous awards, he added.

'Stranger At The Gate' gets Oscar nod

Malala, who announced boarding Stranger at the Gate earlier is month, expressed gratitude after the documentary was nominated in the Best Documentary Short Film category.

Directed and produced by Joshua Seftel, Stranger at the Gate tells the tale of a US Marine, Richard “Mac” McKinney, who initially planned on bombing a mosque but instead converted to Islam. Impressed by the Muslims in the mosque, he abandoned the plan of bombing the mosque and converted to Islam instead. He is now the president of the said mosque.

“This film is a powerful true story of forgiveness and redemption,” Yousafzai had said in a statement to Variety. “I hope the film challenges every viewer to question their assumptions and show kindness to everyone they meet.” She later shared on Twitter, "When I first saw this film, it opened my mind and changed my perspective. I am honoured to support Joshua Seftel's Stranger at the Gate, a powerful true story about redemption."

In an interview with Star Press, McKinney recalled, “These people were killers,” of his first impression of those inside the center. Those inside, however, saw the ex-Marine as troubled and in need of their friendship.

"When Josh Seftel, director of Stranger at the Gate, contacted me as the president of the Islamic Center of Muncie with the idea for this short film," Bibi Bahrami shared. "I jumped at the opportunity to showcase how our Muslim community in Muncie was able to welcome Mac with open arms."

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