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 In a mishap that caused uproar and confusion, presenters
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway initially announced that romantic
musical "La La Land", the presumed favorite for best picture,
had won.
As the casts of both films stood awkwardly on stage, Beatty
explained he had been given the wrong envelope to open.
It was the first time in living memory that such a major mistake
had been made at the Academy Awards, Hollywood's biggest night.
It even eclipsed the prior three hours of a show peppered with
jokes about U.S. President Donald Trump.
Accountants Price Waterhouse Cooper, who oversee the ballots,
said the presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category
envelope.
"We are currently investigating how this could have happened,
and deeply regret that this occurred,"
PwC said in a statement, while apologizing to "Moonlight" and
"La La Land", Beatty and Dunaway and Oscar viewers.
Officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
were not immediately available to comment.
"Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time?" Stone, who won
the best actress Oscar for her "La La Land" role as a struggling
actress, told reporters backstage "It's a very strange happening
for Oscar history."
"Moonlight," about a young boy struggling with poverty and his
sexuality in Miami, also brought a supporting actor Oscar for
first timer Mahershala Ali, a best adapted screenplay statuette.
Viola Davis won for her supporting role as a long suffering
housewife in African-American family drama "Fences."
The recognition for both the actors and their films made a stark
contrast to the 2016 Academy Awards when no actors of color were
even nominated.
"Moonlight" producer Adele Romanski said she hoped the movie
would inspire "little black boys and brown girls and other folks
watching at home who feel marginalized."
'LA LA LAND' WINS SIX AWARDS
"La La Land" went into the Oscars with a leading 14 nominations
and emerged with six, including for its score and theme song
"City of Stars." "La La Land" director Damien Chazelle, 32,
became the youngest person to ever win a best director Oscar.
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Elsewhere, "Manchester by the Sea" star Casey Affleck was named best
actor, winning his first Oscar despite 2010 sexual harassment
allegations that resurfaced during awards season. Affleck denied the
allegations which were settled out of court.
"Man, I wish I had something better and more meaningful to say...I'm
just dumbfounded that I'm included," said Affleck, who played a
heart-broken father in the movie.
Earlier in the show, Trump had been the butt of numerous jokes,
capping an awards season marked by fiery protests by celebrities at
his policies. .
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel fired off political zingers and even
tweeted at the Republican president, getting no immediate response.
Several celebrities wore blue ribbons on Sunday in support of the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy group that worked to
get Trump's bid to ban travelers from seven majority Muslim nations
blocked in U.S. courts. But for the most part, speeches at the
ceremony were mild or made general pleas for tolerance rather than
directly attacking Trump.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi was an exception. His drama "The
Salesman" was named best foreign language film but Farhadi,
boycotted Sunday's ceremony because of the Trump's travel ban.
In a speech delivered on his behalf by Iranian-American space expert
Anousheh Ansari, Farhadi said his absence was due to "an inhumane
law that bans entry into the U.S... Dividing the world into the 'us'
and 'our enemies' categories creates fear, a deceitful justification
for aggression and war."
(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, Nichola Groom and Lisa
Richwine; Editing by Sandra Maler and Mary Milliken)
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