Minari has won the Best Picture Foreign Language award at the Golden Globes.
Starring Steven Yeun, Minari is a semi-autobiographical film by director Lee Isaac Chung which tells the tale of a Korean American family moving to rural Arkansas. Yeun plays the father of the household, Jacob.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) had come under fire for categorising the drama in the foreign-language category as American companies A24 and Plan B were behind the movie.
Actor Daniel Dae Kim tweeted at the time that it is the “film equivalent of being told to go back to your country when that country is actually America.”
Kim’s Convenience star Simu Liu also tweeted, “Just for the record, Minari is an American movie written and directed by an American filmmaker set in America with an American lead actor and produced by an American production company.”
Critics argued that the film should compete in the Best Picture category instead.
The HFPA stated that any film with at least 50 percent non-English dialogue must compete for the foreign-language award.
Nonetheless, Chung gracefully accepted the award, saying, “Minari is about a family. It’s a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language— it’s a language of the heart.”
Social media users congratulated those behind the film but reminded people that the movie is American.
“Reminder: Minari is an American film,” wrote one Twitter user.
“i think we can all agree that minari deserved to be in the best picture category but it deserves all the recognition and more nonetheless,” said another.
Elsewhere, Chloé Zhao made history by becoming the first Asian woman to win Best Director Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards.
i think we can all agree that minari deserved to be in the best picture category but it deserves all the recognition and more nonetheless pic.twitter.com/pcbO2T60BB
— ً (@wiIdshot) March 1, 2021
Reminder: Minari is an American film. #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/d7y9BhBkNi
— Jason Carlos (@jaarlos) March 1, 2021
