Academy Awards Speech for Best Documentary Picture by Barbara Trent
DENZEL WASHINGTON:
And the Oscar for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Feature is “The Panama Deception”
BARBARA TRENT:
Thank you. First I’d like to acknowledge a most remarkable man: the writer, the editor, one of the producers, the co-founder and co-director of the Empowerment Project which supports many filmmakers every year, David Kasper.
DAVID KASPER:
Thank you.
BARBARA TRENT:
As well as the other two producers without whose perseverance the film would never have been completed, Nico Panigutti and Joanne Doroshow.
We’d like to take a moment and dedicate this film to all the people who have worked so hard for justice and truth and peace around the world.
And particularly the four people who have died who were working in association with this film, and the hundreds and possibly thousands of Panamanians who died in this invasion, whose stories might never otherwise be told because of the deceptive practices and tactics of our government with the complicity — I don’t like it either, but it’s the way it is — with the complicity of the major media.
We would like to also dedicate the film to the courageous Panamanian journalists and human rights activists who have defied the Panamanian ban against the screening of this film, at personal risk, to show it in the last few weeks in Panama, which, by the way, reversed the censorship ban which was nationwide.
And to the millions of Americans who may or may not get to see this film now that public TV has also refused a broadcast.
In closing,
I’d just like to say we have a tremendous amount of potential in the world and those of us here have a tremendous amount of potential to impact the world.
Let’s use it.
Let’s challenge this new administration to reverse the legacy that we have left through our policies in the world and become the Americans that we’re capable of.
Thank you very, very much.
Year: 1992 (65th) Academy Awards
Category: Documentary (Feature)
Film Title: The Panama Deception
Winner: Barbara Trent and David Kasper, Producers
Presenter: Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks
Date & Venue: March 29, 1993; Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
