Music By Prudence : Best Documentary Short

Music By Prudence won the Academy Award for Best Documentary this year.The movie tells the story of 21-year-old Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhen who was born severly disabled with a condition called arthrogryposis.

When Prudence was born, her paternal grandmother wished her to be dead . In Zimbabwe, disabled children are occasionally believed to be the consequence of witchcraft. In intense cases, families even kill them to remove the curse from their family.

Music by Prudence narrates the path of this little girl, and her extraordinary transcendence from a world of abhorrence and superstition into one of music, love, and possibility.

After being rejected and cursed by her family,she manages to get a scholarship in King George VI School & Centre for Children with Physical Disabilities (KG6). Her life is totally transformed after joining here.She and some fellow musicians begin an Afro-fusion band called Liyana (“it’s raining” in Ndebele). All eight members of this band are disabled.

Above all Prudence teaches at KG6. She obtains a salary, room, and board.Inspite of her disabilities, she is one of Zimbabwe’s exceptional, working citizen.

The movie’s concluding scene is a concert by Liyana. The audience applauds and whistles, then the screen darkens, leaving only Prudence’s radiant, smiling face. 

The movie is directed by Roger Ross Williams

Up:Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score

At this year’s Oscars, the award for the Best Animated Feature and the Best Original Score won by the movie "Up".The movie directed by Pete Docter and produced by Pixar Animation Studios, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D.

Up features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, and Jordan Nagai. The movie is Pixar's tenth feature film and the studio's first to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D. This movie was also shown in Dolby 3D in selected theaters.

The movie focuses on an aged widower named Carl Fredricksen and an serious young Wilderness Explorer named Russell who fly to South America in a dwelling that is suspended by helium balloons. The film has received tremendously positive reviews, and has grossed around $731 million worldwide, making it Pixar's second-most commercially winning film, behind "Finding Nemo".

From the time of its release, Up has been commended by critics. As of October 17, 2009, Rotten Tomatoes reports that 98% of critics have granted the film a positive review, based on 252 reviews, with a review average of 8.6/10.[53] The film also is credited with holding a score of 88 on the review aggregator website Metacritic as of August 1, 2009.

An interview  with the director  Pete Docter can be found in this website:

http://www.movieretriever.com/blog/336/interview-pete-docter-director-of-up

Best Feature Film: The Hurt Locker

The cast of The Hurt Locker include Jeremy Renner as Sergeant First Class William James, Anthony Mackie as Sergeant JT Sanborn, Brian Geraghty as Specialist Owen Eldridge, Ralph Fiennes (cameo).Directed by Kathryn Bigelow,the movie has dominated the Oscars winning 9 of the awards.

“The Hurt Locker” is all about the harsh jobs of the army men who every time play with lot of risks and how they spend every day in jeopardy. The full movie has the ground base on the examination of journalist and screen writer Mark Boal while he was stationed in Iraq on a project with the chief US army bomb defusing employees.

The movie has a documentary observance as almost all the scenes are shot with a handheld camera style. The movie is based on the lives of this bomb unit and consequently how almost every day is a choice day for the unit as they defuse deadly bombs daily.Kathryn Bigelow’s remarkable directions stick the viewers towards the unit’s every mission as they face death courageously.

The Hurt Locker is neither a illustration of the compassion towards the soldiers nor a dramatic presentation. It is a poignant drama with the psyche of the soldier who is extremely confident at each moment and tackles the situation when there remains no hope. The film depicts 'Courage is not the absence of fear but the knowledge that something else is more important than fear'.

A remarkable job by Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal and Jeremy Renner in the movie "The Hurt Locker". All the Academy awards ,this movie won were well deserved ones.