Alfonso Cuarón Reacts to His Huge Oscar Wins for “Roma”

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón recently won three Oscars for his latest film, Roma. Roma won awards in the categories of Best Director, Cinematography, and Foreign Language Film and was nominated for several others. In a recent interview with Variety, Cuarón gave us his reaction to the incredible win.

Roma was an interesting contender in this year’s awards ceremony since it was a Netflix film, in black and white, and in Spanish. Because of this and other reasons, these Oscars felt more significant for Cuarón than his prior wins for Gravity.

On paper, Roma is not Oscar bait. This is a very specific film. It’s in black and white and in Spanish. It’s a drama. And it felt significant that the Academy was recognizing a film that centers on a character that is a domestic worker from an indigenous background.

The film is strongly based on Cuarón’s personal life, so a natural concern was that it would not translate well to an audience.

It was a film I had to do. I didn’t know if a lot of people were going to see it or if it was going to have much of a life, but I had to do it.

Politically speaking, Roma is very relevant to today’s viewing audience. While this was never Cuarón’s purpose for the film, he has seen the effect it has made.

The response that Roma has been having indicates that there are collective wounds we share as humans. That’s what makes the film relevant for what’s going on nowadays. The film is about the relationship that exists between class and ethnic background.

Cuarón also spoke on what it was like working with Netflix to create this film as opposed to other studios.

Even if [more traditional studios] were supportive, certain aspects – like the black and white or the Spanish language or the unknown actresses – affected their vision for the film. When we spoke to Netflix, those kind[s] of conversations didn’t happen. They were fearless. […] They were willing to change their model to accomodate what we were looking for as filmmakers.

To conclude the interview, Variety asked Cuarón where he planned to display his brand-new Oscar trophies.

I’m moving, so right now everything is in boxes. Maybe for a few weeks they’re going to be in the same boxes as the other ones.

Read the full interview with Variety here! Let us know what you thought of the film Roma in the comments below.