Jane Campion wins best director Oscar for 'The Power of the Dog'
Los Angeles, Mar 28: Jane Campion smashed records and the glass ceiling as she earned the best director Academy Award for her psychological drama Western "The Power of the Dog".
This is her first Oscar win in the category. She also became the first woman to have been nominated twice in the best directing category and the only the third woman after Chloe Zhao's win last year for "Nomadland" and Kathryn Bigelow's win for "Hurt Locker" in 2010.
Set in the director's native New Zealand, "The Power of the Dog" is a character study of toxic masculinity and repressed sexuality.
The acclaimed Netflix film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirsten Dunst, and Jesse Plemons.
After she gave a shout-out to her fellow nominees, Campion talked about her love for directing and creating a world with a team of storytellers.
"I love directing because it's a deep dive into the story. Yet the task of manifesting a world can be overwhelming. The sweet thing is, I'm not alone. On 'The Power of The Dog', I worked with actors I moved to call my friends. They met the challenge of this story with the depth of their gifts -- Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jesse Plemons and my whole crew who are true hearts," she said in her acceptance speech.
The 67-year-old filmmaker, also known for directing the movies "An Angel at My Table", "Holy Smoke!", and co-creating the TV series "Top of the Lake", expressed gratitude to the film's producers and streamer Netflix for supporting the film.
"I thank my brilliant producers. Tanya Seghatchian, who's always by my side. Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier. Netflix, your whole awesome team embraced this film from the very beginning. Thank you so very much," she said.
Campion further thanked her family and her "home people".
"Especially Alice, my daughter here. Tony, my beautiful partner. You gave me so much love and encouragement and made it fun," she added.
Campion won her first Academy Award back in 1994 for "The Piano", also based in New Zealand, in the best original screenplay category, where she also received a directing nod.
She won the Silver Lion for best direction at the 78th Venice International Film Festival for the film, which is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage.
The director paid tributes to author Savage, who she said she never met.
"He wrote about cruelty, wanting the opposite, kindness. Thank you Academy. It's a lifetime honour," she added.
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None of Adani portfolio companies subject to any legal case: Group CFO on promoter indictment in US
New Delhi, Nov 23: None of Adani group portfolio companies, comprising 11 listed firms, have been accused of any wrongdoing, conglomerate's CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh said on founder and chairman Gautam Adani's indictment on bribery charges in the US.
In a post on X, Singh said the group would make a detailed comment on the US indictment once it gets counsel approvals.
Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar Adani, allegedly agreed to pay about USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that were expected to yield USD 2 billion of profit over 20 years, according to an indictment unsealed in a New York court on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the US has also charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global, for "conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme".
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing," Singh said.
He hastened to add that no court has ruled on the indictment, and as outlined by lawyers of the US Department of Justice, these are "allegations and the accused have a presumption of innocence".
The CFO, who was the first line of defence when US short-seller Hindenburg Research had accused the ports-to-power conglomerate of fraud in January 2023, said the group became aware of the "specificity" of the US indictment against founder and chairman Gautam Adani two days ago.
"We were aware that something is afoot (and in February 2024 144a offering circular in Risk Factors we disclosed as such. This was the first public issuance of any of our portfolio companies or their subsidiaries or joint venture companies after our annual results of 31st March 2023)," he said.
He, however, did not state what the company had disclosed in February 2024.
Adani Group, he said, has a portfolio of 11 public companies and "none are subject to indictment (i.e. defendants in any legal proceedings in the recent DOJ lawyer filings to a court in NYC)".
"None of the issuers (i.e. companies in our portfolio or specific issuers that are subsidiaries of the public companies) are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing," he said.
The indictment "relates to one contract of Adani Green, which is roughly 10 per cent of overall business of Adani Green (there is a lot more precise and comprehensive detail of this which we will elaborate in an appropriate forum)," he said.
The statement comes two days after Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors over his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 265 million (about RS 2,200 crore) bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts. The conglomerate has denied the allegations, calling them baseless, and announced plans to seek legal recourse.
The Adani Family has 11 listed entities on the Indian stock exchanges - flagship incubator Adani Enterprises Ltd, electricity producer Adani Power Ltd, ports company Adani Ports & SEZ, power transmission firm Adani Energy Solutions Limited, renewable arm Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL), city gas distributor Adani Total Gas Ltd, commodities firm Adani Wilmar Ltd, media firm New Delhi Television Ltd and cement companies Ambuja Cements Limited, ACC Ltd, and Sanghi Industries Ltd.
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing (Please note that no court has ruled on this and as outlined by lawyers of DOJ these are 'allegations and accused have a presumption of innocence'). We will make a more detailed comment once we get counsel approvals to discuss what we can in public on a matter that is sub-judice," he added.
