By Hanna Arhirova & Mallika Sen
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) --The shortened version of the international broadcast of the 96th Oscars faced harsh criticism in Ukraine for omitting the segment announcing the documentary feature award, which went to Mstyslav Chernov's "20 Days in Mariupol."
The documentary, a collaboration between The Associated Press and PBS' "Frontline," is a harrowing first-person account set in the Ukrainian port city during the early days of Russia's invasion in 2022.
Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne, the exclusive broadcaster of the Oscars in the country, published a statement of indignation on Monday.
"Our team was shocked and deeply disappointed when we did not see the category for Best Feature Documentary in the international version, where 20 Days in Mariupol was justly awarded," said Lukian Halkin, executive producer of the Suspilne Kultura TV channel.
According to Disney, the official international licensing agent for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, decisions were made weeks in advance of Sunday's telecast on which portions and categories to omit for the condensed version of the show.
International licensees receive two versions of the broadcast: the live version and a 90-minute version, produced by the film academy. The truncated version — which does include a recap of the cut winners, including "20 Days in Mariupol" — is often preferred by international broadcasters, Disney says. Suspilne said that instead of the shortened version, it is broadcasting Ukrainian viewers the unedited cut.
"Mstyslav Chernov's powerful speech emphasized the unity between Ukraine and the world, which makes it all the more disappointing to see this episode full of truth and power excluded from the version distributed to the Oscar's global licensees," Halkin said.
The film academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision to cut the documentary category.
The edited version also sparked criticism on various social media platforms in Ukraine, where the documentary's Academy Award was hailed as a bittersweet but welcome victory.
"The fact that Ukraine received its first Oscar, and that the world will see again the horrors that the Russian army committed in Mariupol, is certainly a victory of truth over falsehood," Oleksii Kurka, a Kyiv office worker, told the AP.
The AP team of Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko arrived an hour before Russia began bombing the port city. Two weeks later, they were the last journalists working for an international outlet still in the city, sending crucial dispatches to the outside world showing civilian casualties of all ages, the digging of mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the sheer extent of the devastation.
The Oscar — and the nomination — was a first for both Chernov, an AP video journalist, and the 178-year-old news organization. The documentary was a joint production of the AP and PBS' "Frontline." It was the first win for "Frontline" after two previous nominations.
Statuettes were awarded to Chernov, producer and editor Michelle Mizner and producer Raney Aronson-Rath. Maloletka, Stepanenko and Derl McCrudden, an AP vice president and credited producer on the film, were among those onstage to accept the award.
"We can make sure that the history record is set straight and the truth will prevail, and that the people of Mariupol, and those who have given their lives, will never be forgotten," Chernov said from the Oscar stage. "Because cinema forms memories and memories form history."
Sen reported from New York.
More than 67 million people watched Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debate. That’s way up from June
An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sharp increase from the June debate that eventually led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.
The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.
Tuesday's count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump's and Hillary Clinton's first faceoff in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.
With Harris widely perceived to have outperformed Trump on Tuesday night, the former president and his supporters are sharply criticizing ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. The journalists waded into on-the-fly fact checks during the debate, correcting four statements by Trump.
No other debates are currently scheduled between the two presidential candidates, although there's been some talk about it and Fox News Channel has publicly offered alternatives. CBS will host a vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
Tuesday's debate stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate uncorked a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden's withdrawal from the race after his performance was widely panned.
Opinions on how ABC handled the latest debate Tuesday were, in a large sense, a Rorschach test on how supporters of both sides felt about how it went. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X that the ABC moderators were doing an "excellent" job — only to be answered by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said,... Read More