La Land is the favorite for the Oscars

The curtain rises Sunday on the Oscars, the biggest party of the year in Hollywood, with the musical La La Land favorite, Isabelle Huppert in the race and a lot of expected politics.

The 89 th award ceremony of the most prestigious awards of American cinema will start at 17 h 30 local time (20: 30 pm, Montreal time) at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, in an area cordoned off amid tight security.

Previously, some 3,000 guests in gala dress will be pacing under a cloudy Californian sky the red carpet, for one of the highlights of the fashion year.

The evening could be historic in more ways than one.

Competing for 14 trophies, La La Land , a real declaration of love to the City of Angels has won over critics and card theaters, has already tied the record of appointments Titanic and Eve after gleaned 7 Golden Globes – unpublished.

Its author, Damien Chazelle, prodigy of 32 years, could become the youngest filmmaker crowned best director.

Moonlight, an intimate and dramatic drama about a young black boy who grew up in a difficult neighborhood with a drug addict mother, competed for eight statuettes, including best director, best director (Barry Jenkins) and the best second Female roles (Naomie Harris) and masculine (Mahershala Ali, favorite).

Shot for only $ 1.5 million, he triumphed Saturday at the Spirit Awards, which reward independent film.

Stone against Huppert

Manchester by the sea , by Kenneth Lonergan, is another darling of the awards season and his performer Casey Affleck is neck and neck with Denzel Washington for the best actor trophy.

He interprets a depressed man suddenly forced to take care of his nephew. In turn rage, broken and at times funny, he definitely freed himself from the shadow of his famous elder Ben Affleck.

“I was once” at the Oscars in 2008. “I was much younger and did not fully appreciate its importance,” said the 41-year-old actor at the Spirit Awards where he was awarded.

“Denzel Washington is one of the people who taught me to play and I did not even meet him,” he said of his rival.

Denzel Washington, already the only African-American winner of two Oscars, could enter the tiny club of actors winning three statuettes.

Viola Davis, who gives her a replica in Fences , adapted from a play by August Wilson, is anticipated as a laureate of the second female role.

As for Emma Stone, who makes tap dancing, sings, cries and unfolds all her charm in La La Land , she is largely leading the bets for the best actress award.

She plays Mia, a young actress who falls in love with Sebastian, a purist jazz pianist, played by Ryan Gosling, who is also in competition.

The bubbly 28-year-old turquoise-eyed will have for rivals Natalie Portman, masterful Jackie Kennedy – who will not attend the ceremony due to the imminent arrival of her second child – and Isabelle Huppert for the sulphurous Elle .

The Oscar is the only notable trophy missing from the impressive record of the Frenchwoman who has already pocketed a Golden Globe, Spirit and a Caesar for her virtuoso performance of a raped woman who tracks her attacker.

“You can rebel with art, that’s what I love,” said the 63-year-old icon to the Spirits.

Iranian Boycott

After two years in which the Academy was strongly criticized for its selection of all white actors, six black performers are finalists this year, a record, and four of the five documentary filmmakers are black.

This polemic should therefore give way to statements against the American president in a largely anti-Trump Hollywood.

Announcing the color, Casey Affleck told the Spirit Awards that “the policies of this administration are horrible.”

Host Jimmy Kimmel, who will be on Sunday for one of the most watched television broadcasts in the world, promised an inaugural monologue in charge of politics.

Iranian Asghar Farhadi, director of The Salesman , a French co-production well placed for the award for best foreign language film, decided to boycott the ceremony, as did his interpreter Taraneh Alidousti.

According to Variety magazine , Farhadi will be represented by two renowned Iranian-American scientists.

Two Syrian white helmets who were to attend the ceremony where they are the subject of a documentary ( The White Helmets ) named for a statuette will ultimately not come.

One of them, Khaled Khatib, has seen his passport “canceled by the Syrian regime”, according to a statement, and their leader Raed Saleh has invoked an additional work.