Man on Wire-Philippe Petit

This years Oscar award for the best documentary was won by 'Man on Wire'.This unique documenary directed by James Marsh was based on Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the Twin Towers(WTC) in New York in 1974. The documentary is based on Philippe Petit's book titled 'To Reach the Clouds'.This book was recently released with the new title 'Man on Wire'.

Philippe Petit,born on August 13,1949 is a French high wire artist,who is also well known for being a magician,unicyclist, pantomime.This documentary 'Man on Wire' is an awesome one as James Marsh has creatively converted the original events into a dramatic one.Though Philippe Petit ,while accepting his oscar speech said that he was delivering the shortest acceptance speech..he went on to add a few more words after that ! Here is his speech:"The shortest speech in Oscar history. Yes! But I always break the rule. I break my own rules very quickly..."     

Immediately after receiving his Oscar ,Petit balanced the Oscar statue upside down on his chin!

Acceptance Speeches at the oscars this year

Danny Boyle(SlumDog Millionaire)-Best director

"My kids are too young to remember this, but I swore that if this miracle ever happened, I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, so that's what that was about. Thanks everyone at Warner Brothers for passing on to Fox Searchlight. Just to say to Mumbai - unending, unseparable, unborn - all of you who helped us make the film and all of you who didn't, thank you so much. You dwarf even the sky."


Kate Winslet (The Reader)-Best actress winner

"I'd be lying if I hadn't made a version of this speech before. I must have been eight-years-old, and this [holds up statue] was a shampoo bottle. Well it's not a shampoo bottle now. I'd like to thank my family who are in this room somewhere. Dad, whistle so I know where you are. I'd like to thank my fellow nominees. These goddesses. Thank you so very much. I think we all can't believe we are in the same category as Meryl Streep at all."


A R Rahman(Slumdog Millionaire)-Best song:

"All my life I've had a choice of hate or love, I chose love and I'm here. God Bless"


Penelope Cruz(Vicky Cristina Barcelona)-Best supporting actress:

"It's not going to be 45 seconds, I can tell you that [and it certainly wasn't]. Has anyone ever fainted, because I might be the first one? I can not talk about great characters without mentioning my friend Pedro Almodovar. I want to dedicate this to my parents and friends..."

Wall-E

Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth) won the Best Animated feature at this year's Academy Awards.The movie is directed and written by Andrew Stanton and produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The story is about the distant unrealistic future, where a robot named Wall E is left to clean the earth that is covered by garbage due to the products that is sold by multi-national Buy N Large corporation.WALL-E is left in this earth with just another pet cockroach. Later another robot named Eve is sent to the earth to find if there is life existing on earth still.Life turns wonderful for WALL-e when he falls in love with Eve.Eventually both their lives turn adventurous when they move into outer space ,which turns the destiny of robots and human beings.

The special feature of this film is that majority of the characters in this film do not have human voices. Instead these characters communicate through body language as well as special robotic sounds which are designed by Ben Burtt. This animated feature was released in US and Canada in June 2008.The movie was ranked #1 at the box office during the opening weekend.For Pixar film it marked their third highest grossing film in the opening weekend. The movie is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Smile Pinky

Smile Pinky is a very touching documentary about the struggles of a 8 year old kid who was born with a cleft lip.Its a 39 minute duration documentary which was short in Rampur Dahaba village in Uttar Pradesh,India.

This documentary depicts how the kid Pinki Kumari(in picture) was being considered a social outcast by her village people due to her deformity.This little child was not even allowed to attend school by her village people.Since her parents were hailing from an extremely poor family ,they were unable to afford the surgery to correct the cleft problem.Rescue comes their way when Pankaj,a social activist from the "Smile Train" met Pinki's parents.Smile Train which is an international charity was found in 2000 and aims at helping children with cleft lips.The social activists of Smile Train move from village to village and gather poor children with cleft lip problems and perform surgeries for them free of cost.The documentary also shows how after the surgery, performed by Dr Subodh Kumar Singh,Pinky Kumari is able to lead a normal childhood like the rest of the children in her village.

Directed by Emmy-nominated producer Megan Mylan,the film is shot in Bhojpuri and Hindi with English subtitles.The film which won the Best Short Documentary at the Oscars this year has raised immense hopes for children who are born with cleft lips.