While a Cincinnati-made movie didn’t bring home an Oscar at Sunday’s Academy Awards, it was still a good night for the city as two women from the area took home top awards for their categories.
For the first award of the evening, Cincinnati-born Regina King won for best supporting actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk. While she was born in Cincinnati, Regina and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was a child but she still has family back here.
During her acceptance speech she offered an emotional thank you to her family, especially her mother, who was in the audience with her. “I’m an example of what it looks like when support and love is poured into someone, Mom,” she said.
Later in the evening Hannah Beachler, a native of Centerville, Ohio, who attended the University of Cincinnati and graduated from Wright State University, took home an Oscar for best production design for Black Panther, her first Oscar nomination. She is a veteran in design, working on the Oscar winning Moonlight, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and, here in Cincinnati, the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. She’s back in Cincinnati working on the Todd Haynes film now shooting here, Dry Run.
In 2017, Hannah Beachler donated the Art Directors Guild Award she received for her work on Lemonade to the Motion Pictures Program in honor of her late classmate Carol Trevino, whom she referenced in her acceptance speech. She is pictured with W. Stuart McDowell, artistic director of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures. (Thanks to Wright State University for allowing the use of the photo)