This year's Academy Awards, announced
Tuesday, held a few LGBT surprises.
The film Call Me By Your Name
received four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best
adapted screenplay.
Based on the 2007 novel by the same
name, Call Me By Your Name follows a love affair between a
17-year-old American-Italian Jewish boy (played by Timothee Chalamet)
and a 24-year-old American Jewish scholar (Armie Hammer) who is
visiting Italy in the late 1980s. André
Aciman's novel chronicles the pair's brief affair and two
later-in-life reunions.
Call Me By Your Name is
considered a strong contender in the best picture category. Also
nominated in the category were Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out,
Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Lady Bird
and The Shape of Water
also include gay characters, though neither is explicitly gay-themed.
Chalamet's
performance earned him his first-ever best actor nomination. James
Ivory, who is openly gay, received a nomination in the best adapted
screenplay category. The song Mystery of Love
from the film's soundtrack was also nominated.
Yance
Ford, the director of the documentary Strong Island,
became the first transgender filmmaker to be nominated for an Oscar.
Sebastian
Lelio's A Fantastic Woman
(Una Mujer Fantastica)
was nominated in the best foreign language film category.
In the
film, a transgender woman (played by transgender actress Daniela
Vega) must fight for her right to grieve after the passing of her
lover. The
film won the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival,
also known as Berlinale.