The 93rd annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday (April 25), and it looks like the best chance a Latino goes home with one of the coveted gold statues is going to come down to sound.
Mexican sound re-recording mixers Jaime Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc and Carlos Cortés are the favorites to win the Oscar in the Best Sound category for their sound design on the drama Sound of Metal. They are joined by co-workers Nicolas Becker and Phillip Bladh.
Sound of Metal is the story of a heavy metal drummer (Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed) who suddenly loses his hearing and must come to terms with not being able to play music anymore.
“It was very important for us that it felt truly gigantic in sound because the movie is about a drummer who becomes deaf because he plays thrash metal,” Bakash told Variety. “It had to be loud and raucous. It can’t be aggressive for the audience but has to get across the sensation of being in that concert.”
This is the first Oscar nomination for Baksht, Couttolenc and Cortés. During this year’s award season, they have picked up wins at several awards ceremonies, including the Cinema Audio Society, Association of Motion
Picture Sound, BAFTA and the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association, among others.
Competition for other Latinos nominated for an Oscar this year is likely to be too much to overcome. While Best Sound should go to Sound of Metal, we’re predicting two-time Oscar nominated Afro-Panamanian filmmaker Shaka King will come up short as a producer in the Best Picture category and screenwriter in the Best Original Screenplay category for his drama Judas and the Black Messiah. We’re predicting Nomandland to win the big prize of the night and Promising Young Woman to win for the latter.
Lastly, Chilean producer and director Maite Alberdi and Chilean producer Marcela Santibáñez were nominated for The Mole Agent in the Documentary Feature category, but we’re predicting My Octopus Teacher swims off with that Oscar.
The 93rd Oscars will air live on ABC on Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 8 p.m. EST.