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Ava DuVernay’s latest drama “Origin” has added an original song to its Oscar prospects.

New Zealand Māori artist Stan Walker performed the new song, “I Am,” at a private film screening at the Edition Hotel in West Hollywood on Wednesday. He also co-wrote the track with Michael Fatkin, Vince Harder and Te Kanapu Anasta. The song enters a competitive race of Oscar hopefuls from movies such as “Barbie” and “Trolls Band Together.”

Walker would make history as the second Indigenous person, and the first Indigenous man, nominated for original song. Buffy Sainte-Marie became the first Indigenous person ever to win an Academy Award in 1982 for the song “Up Where We Belong” from “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Aside from Sainte-Marie, the only Indigenous Oscar winner in 95 years is Taika Waititi, who took home the adapted screenplay prize for “Jojo Rabbit” (2019).

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

At the 2023 Oscars, Ruth E. Carter won her second statuette for her imaginative costume work on the futuristic Marvel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. This marked Carter’s second Oscar win for best costume design.

She previously won an Oscar in 2019 for Marvel’s Black Panther, becoming the first-ever Black woman to take home the statuette for costume design. She now becomes the first Black woman to be a two-time winner in any category, and joins only four other Black winners to have two competitive Oscars (Denzel Washington, Willie D. Burton, Russell Williams II and Mahershala Ali).

She also becomes the first person to win a costume design Oscar for designing both an original film and its sequel.

At the start of her acceptance speech, Carter alluded to her prior win for Black Panther, telling the audience, “Nice to see you again.”

And she dedicated the moment to her late mother,...

Gregg Rudloff.

Oscar-winning sound designer David White has written an open letter to his colleagues after reports that the death of renowned re-recording mixer Gregg Rudloff is being treated as a suicide.

Rudloff, who won best sound Academy Awards for George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, shared with Chris Jenkins and Ben Osmo; The Matrix, shared with John T. Reitz, David E. Campbell and David Lee; and Glory, shared with Donald O. Mitchell, Elliot Tyson and Russell Williams II, died in Los Angeles, aged 63.

White, who won an Oscar for Mad Max: Fury Road, shared with Mark A. Mangini, hailed Rudloff as “an understated colossal giant of the film sound community.”

Miller told If: “Only those privileged to work closely with Gregg Rudloff would know the mastery and brilliance of his work. All who encountered him, however, got to know the brightness of his mind and the elegance of his soul.

David White with Gregg Rudloff at the 2016 Academy Awards.

Gregg Rudloff, a multiple Oscar-winning re-recording mixer who worked on Mad Max: Fury Road, The Lego Movie and The Matrix franchise, has died in Los Angeles. He was 63.

The Us-born sound guru followed in the footsteps of his father Tex Rudloff, an Oscar nominee for The Buddy Holly Story in 1978.

Among his most recent credits were The Other Side of the Wind, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, The Foreigner, Molly’s Game, Death Note and Fences.

He won best sound Academy Awards for George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, shared with Chris Jenkins and Ben Osmo; The Matrix, shared with John T. Reitz, David E. Campbell and David Lee; and Glory, shared with Donald O. Mitchell, Elliot Tyson and Russell Williams II.

Miller tells If: “Only those privileged to work closely with Gregg Rudloff would know the mastery and brilliance of his work.

In the late 1980s after six successful years on “St. Elsewhere,” Denzel Washington was making a successful segue into the movies. Just as that show was about to end for NBC, he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor as a South African activist in the 1987 film “Cry Freedom.” He lost the award that evening to Sean Connery (“The Untouchables”), but it would be just two years later that he would take home the gold for his performance as Private Silas Tripp in “Glory.”

See Oscar Best Supporting Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

Watch his acceptance speech above from the 1990 Academy Awards ceremony as the 36-year-old actor beams in front of his mother and wife after presenter Geena Davis announces his name. He also thanks the men of the 54th from the American Civil War. In the film, Washington played an emancipated former slave...

This year, controversy over the repeated snubbing of African-American actors from the Oscars has once again dominated headlines.Twenty years ago, a special report in People examined diversity in the movie industry and labeled Hollywood's "continued exclusion of African-Americans" as "a national disgrace".The report was reexamined five years later in a follow up exposé, and while People uncovered encouraging signs of improvement, the African-American actors interviewed made it clear they felt the industry still had a long way to go.Now, another fifteen years later, and with calls to boycott the award show gaining traction, the original article appears...

This year, controversy over the repeated snubbing of African-American actors from the Oscars has once again dominated headlines.Twenty years ago, a special report in People examined diversity in the movie industry and labeled Hollywood's "continued exclusion of African-Americans" as "a national disgrace".The report was reexamined five years later in a follow up exposé, and while People uncovered encouraging signs of improvement, the African-American actors interviewed made it clear they felt the industry still had a long way to go.Now, another fifteen years later, and with calls to boycott the award show gaining traction, the original article appears...

Elo cellist Mike Edwards's death was "easily preventable", a court has been told. The late musician died instantly when a 600kg bale rolled down a steep field and crushed his vehicle back in September 2010. Framer Brian Burden and agricultural contractor Russell Williams deny two health and safety charges, but are in court over the way they carried out their work, prosecutor Rupert Lowe told Plymouth Crown Court. "They are both decent, hard-working men who you would never expect to be in a court like this," Lowe said, reports BBC News. After describing how the cylindrical bale rolled down a steep hill onto the A381 (more)...

The new film The Eagle faces a tough battle to match the brilliance of Rosemary Sutcliff's book

The Ninth "Hispana" Legion, mutinous and undisciplined, has been lost forever in the wild north of Roman Britain, along with its commander. Lost with it is its totemic eagle standard, plunging the legion's name into ignominy. The commander's son, Marcus Flavius Aquila, sets out with Esca, his British slave, to discover what became of the standard and of his father's 4,000 men.

The Eagle of the Ninth is an intensely memorable children's classic, full of marsh mist, hurt pride and high courage; fans will be excited to hear that a film adaptation, The Eagle, is released this week. Animated by author Rosemary Sutcliff, the average schoolchild's bare-bones knowledge of life in the Roman legions acquires fascinating flesh as Marcus undertakes his desperate journey.

What makes the book so extraordinary is the combination of...

According to Helene Joy, Durham County, a TV series she stars in, is a slap in the face for those who believe that life is a fairy tale.

For this Canadian actress, the show's dark tone isn't exaggerated. In fact, this gives a "bleak theme to Durham County", something that she feels necessary. After all, even if our life more or less borders on a fairytale, Durham County puts us in front of truths about our society in her opinion.

In Durham County, Joy plays Audrey Sweeney, a nurse who lives in a fictitious suburb of Toronto and who is married to Mike Sweeney, a former homicide detective who is now the superintendent of the Durham Police Department. Besides, her husband is investigating on murders related to drug trafficking along the corridor of the 401 highway. Now that the dust has settled at the end of the second season, Audrey is...

A Canadian pilot, who at one time flew Britain's Queen Elizabeth, has been handed 82 charges of stealing women's underwear. Colonel Russell Williams - who was the commander of Canada's largest air force base - already faces two charges of murder and two charges of sexual assault and has now been linked with the thefts of ladies' lingerie from dozens of homes. Williams, who flew the queen and other dignitaries in 2005, appeared in court in Belleville, Ontario, yesterday (29.04.10) via video link from a detention centre where he is being held in isolation. He is alleged to have stolen underwear from Ottawa, where he has a house, and Ontario, where the colonel was appointed commander of the Trenton military...

On Sunday, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win Best Director in the Academy Awards' 82-year history. (A much deserved win, Imho.) However, not to steal Ms. Bigelow's thunder, we also witnessed another historic first at this year's Oscars: Geoffrey Fletcher, who won Best Adapted Screenplay for Precious, became the first African-American to win an Oscar for screenwriting. This is no small feat and no small milestone. Over the last 82 years, an impressive roster of black actors and actresses have won Oscars, most of them within the last two decades. Russell Williams II even won back-to-back Oscars for his work as a sound mixer. But until this year, we've yet to see an African-American screenwriter take home the gold. (No African-American has ever won the Oscar for Best Director, a fact I'm sure both Lee Daniels and Spike Lee...