Flashback

Oscar-winner Orlando von Einsiedel on witnessing the Great Envelope Mix-up

I’d gone to the Academy Awards in 2015, when our film Virunga was nominated for best documentary, but we hadn’t won and we’d sat through the ceremony and then been disappointed. So when The White Helmets was nominated in 2017, the producer Joanna Natasegara and I decided that we would set aside expectations and just use that platform to bring attention to the atrocities perpetrated upon Syrian civilians by the Assad regime, and talk about the extraordinary work of White Helmet rescue workers.

We weren’t the favourites to win, I believe that was a sweet film called Joe’s Violin, about a Holocaust survivor who gave his violin to a young girl. So when the announcement was made it was a total shock – almost like an out-of-body experience. I remember walking up to the stage and Barry Jenkins [the director of Moonlight] giving me a high five, which was amazing.

On stage, I read a quote from White Helmets director Raed Saleh that included a quote from the Koran, which is the group’s motto – ‘To save one life is to save all of humanity.’ And then, I remember saying to the audience, ‘Could everyone here stand up to show that we all care about the war in Syria ending as soon as possible’ – and the whole auditorium stood up. It was spontaneous – I hadn’t planned it.

Joanna and I went backstage and the first thing we did was to call our cinematographers, who hadn’t been able to get visas to join us – Fadi Al Halabi, Hassan Kattan and Khaled Khatib – in Istanbul. After collecting the award, you end up spending at least an hour backstage doing interviews. You can’t enter the auditorium between awards, so we were just having a drink in the bar before going back to our seats, and that’s when the big mistake happened: Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were given the wrong envelope and announced that La La Land was the winner of best picture, instead of Moonlight. There had been a lively buzz in the bar, but suddenly everyone stopped what they were doing and went quiet – then we could hear people in the auditorium shrieking and it was total pandemonium.

I’ve watched it back since and it was so awkward, but moments like that – when things are not controlled – are weirdly invigorating. I was there last year with another film we made [Learning To Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)], when Parasite

started sweeping the board, and there was again this feeling of a disruption of the norm, and it made the room electric.

If you’ve won an Oscar you can go to the fancy Vanity Fair

party with all of Hollywood, and the rule is – if there’s a car with an Oscar in it, everyone in that car is allowed to get in. So we immediately called all the film team and said, ‘Jump in.’ When Joanna and I arrived, Good Morning Britain

started interviewing us – we hadn’t realised until then that we were the only British winners – and it was the first Oscar for Netflix. Our families woke up that morning in the UK to see us on the breakfast shows.

I took the Oscar home in my hand luggage and when it went through the X-ray machine, the officials said, ‘Is that what we think it is?’ So we pulled it out to show them and everyone stood around admiring it, but of course they didn’t have a clue who I was. It is extraordinary what an object of fascination it is to people. It’s very recognisable – especially in Los Angeles. But we keep it quite discreetly at home in south London – it’s not the first thing you see when you walk in the door. I guess I’m very British. — Interview by Jessamy Calkin

Joanna Natasegara and Orlando von Einsiedel receiving their Oscars in 2017

The audience react as Warren Beatty reveals the wrong-envelope blunder