'Number 3' Director's Daughter Nominated for Oscar Best Picture and Screenplay for Debut Film (Comprehensive)

Korean-Canadian Celine Song's 'Fast Lives'
Shoulder to Shoulder with 'Maestro' and 'Oppenheimer'
Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' Joins Most Nominations

Directed by Korean-Canadian filmmaker Celine Song, the film Fast Lives is vying for two trophies at the American Academy Awards. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced the final nominees for the 96th Academy Awards on the 23rd (local time), with the film nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (Celine Song).

Fast Lives will compete in the Best Picture category against nine other films, including American Fiction, Anatomy of Falling, Barbie, Barton Academy, Flower Killing Moon, Maestro Bernstein, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and The John of Interest. For the Best Original Screenplay award, it will contend with Justin Trier and Arthur Harari (Anatomy of Falling), David Hemingson (Barton Academy), Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer (Maestro Bernstein), and Sammy Birch (May December), among others.

Fast Lives is a drama about first love Nayoung and Haesung, who spent their childhood in Seoul and reunite in New York after 24 years, reflecting on their relationship. The film stars Yoo Tae-oh, Greta Lee, and John Magaro. It has been praised locally for beautifully capturing a Korean worldview and scenery.

The story is largely autobiographical for director Song. A significant portion was filmed in Korea, and most of the dialogue is in Korean. CJ ENM, the investor and distributor, described the nomination as "a recognition of the screenplay's completeness, with a dense story that transcends language barriers and delicate emotional lines." Director Song is the daughter of Song Neunghan, who directed the film Number 3 (1997) starring Han Seok-kyu and Choi Min-sik. She became the fourth filmmaker to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for a feature debut and the first Asian female director to achieve this.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January last year. It received critical acclaim and was invited to compete at the Berlin International Film Festival a month later. At the Golden Globe Awards held on the 7th, it was nominated in five categories: Best Motion Picture ? Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Actress, but did not win. It is also nominated in three categories at the British Academy Film Awards: Best Actor, Best International Film, and Best Original Screenplay. Ko Kyung-beom, head of CJ ENM’s film business division, said, "It is a meaningful result in that it moved audiences with universal appeal beyond language and cultural barriers."

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer leads with thirteen nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things received eleven nominations, Martin Scorsese’s Flower Killing Moon ten, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie eight, and Bradley Cooper’s Maestro Bernstein seven, following closely behind.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.