Israeli director Guy Nattiv wins Oscar for best live action short

Israeli director Guy Nattiv’s short film Skin won an Oscar for best live action short on Sunday, with the filmmaker crediting his grandparents who survived the Shoah as the inspiration for the film in his acceptance speech.

“My grandparents are Holocaust survivors,”said Guy Nattiv, accepting the award. “The bigotry that they experienced in the Holocaust, we see that everywhere today, in America, in Europe. This film is about education, about teaching your kids a better way.”

Other Jewish nominees failed to take home Oscar trophies — including Rachel Weisz, up for supporting actress for her work in The Favourite, and the Coen brothers, whose script for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was up for best adapted screenplay.

But BlacKkKlansman, co-written by Jewish writers Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz (along with Kevin Willmott and director Spike Lee), won the best adapted screenplay award. The film centers on the first African-American cop in the Colorado Springs police force, who teams up with a Jewish detective to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan.

Barbra Streisand gave a passionate introduction for the video summarizing BlacKkKlansman, and noted that after she first praised the film on Twitter, she and Lee had an “easy” conversation about it, due to the fact that they both hail from Brooklyn.

The song Shallow from A Star Is Born won for Best Original Song for the writing and producing team that included Jewish songwriter, producer and DJ Marc Ronson. It was performed at the Oscars by Lady Gaga.

The evening opened with a performance of  We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions by members of Queen with Adam Lambert.