Cuaron’s ‘Roma’ gives Mexico 1st foreign language film Oscar

LOS ANGELES — “Roma,” the touching black-and-white portrait of a domestic worker and the middle-class family she cares for in 1970s Mexico City, won the Oscar for best foreign language film Sunday, giving Mexico its long-sought first win in that category. While the foreign language Oscar will go to Mexico’s film academy, it was also a night of personal triumph for Cuaron, who took home best director and best cinematography statuettes. The other nominated films Sunday were Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski’s 20th-century romance “Cold War;" German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s artist biopic “Never Look Away;" Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s’s subtle family story “Shoplifters;" and “Capernaum,” a powerful neo-realist drama about a Syrian child refugee from Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki. “When asked about in the book about the New Wave, Claude Chabrol said, ‘There are no waves, there’s only the ocean.’ I think that the nominees tonight have proven that we are part of the same ocean.” The Mexican Institute of Cinematography tweeted praise for the win, including a virtual chant of “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!” “Roma” represented Cuaron’s return to Mexico as director since he made his international debut with “Y Tu Mama Tambien” in 2001, which earned him nominations for the Golden Globes and Oscars.