Winners' acceptance speech by Lisa Nishimura, Howard Barish and Ava DuVernay for 13th in the Documentary category
LISA NISHIMURA: Wow. This is absolutely incredible. My name is Lisa and I had the incredible honour of working with the visionary director Ava DuVernay to produce 13th. She is so heartbroken not to be here. The only thing that would keep her from being in this room tonight is that she is shooting her next film in New Zealand. So she sends her incredible thanks and gratitude. But please know how important this specific award is to her and to all of us.
So, on behalf of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, Cindy Holland, Adam Del Deo, Ben Cotner and myself, the producers Tilane Jones and Howard Barish. The incredible editor, writer and producer, Spencer Averick and of course our director, Ava DuVernay. We are so grateful and thankful to the academy, thank you so much. We are truly humbled that you are recognising 13th tonight. The United States of America has more people in prison today than any other country in the world. America represents 5 per cent of the global population, and yet we have 25 per cent of the world's prison population. It matters so deeply that you in the UK in particular have taken an interest in this important issue.
We really have to ask ourselves: how is it that we label people criminal? How do we think about people that look different from us? How do we think about our sense of other and otherness, and that sense of otherness, how it can lead us to do to one another, is something that we all must find in ourselves. We are in a time of great uncertainty, a time when walls are being built and borders are being closed, so these questions are more important than ever. But being in this remarkable room with this extraordinary talent, I am filled with hope, that you, through your great cinematic work, we will be able to inspire one another to celebrate our differences and to see clearly that, as people, far more connects us than divides us. Thank you so much.
