At the BAFTAsthis weekend, it is shortlisted for 11 prizes; just pipped by papal thriller Conclave, which has 12. And star Karla Sofia Gascon has made history as a trans woman nominated for best actress at both ceremonies.
Set in Mexicobut mostly filmed in France, Emilia Perez is an operatic Spanish-language musical which tells the story of a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery. In May last year, it won the Cannes Film Festival jury prize, setting it on its trajectory to 2025 awards season success.
Image: Selena Gomez (pictured with Gascon) also stars in in the film. Pic: Page 114/ Why Not Productins/ Pathe/ France 2 Cinema/ Netflix
The film’s acknowledgement seemingly reflected the more progressive attitudes of voters in recent years – but as its profile rose, so did the scrutiny.
US LGBTQ+ advocacy and cultural change group GLAAD has described Emilia Perez as a “step backward for trans representation”, and highlighted reviews by transgender critics who “understand how inauthentic portrayals of trans people are offensive and even dangerous”.
The film has also come under fire for stereotypical depictions of Mexico and an apparent minimal inclusion of Mexican people among the main cast and crew. Of its main stars, Gascon is Spanish, US actress Zoe Saldana is of Dominican Republic and Puerto Rican descent, and Selena Gomez is American, though her father was of Mexican descent. Adriana Paz is Mexican.
While stories about “narco” crime in Latin America have long been depicted on screen, Emilia Perez has been particularly criticised for its handling of the subject. Since 2006, a bloody war between Mexican authorities and the drug cartels has raged, claiming the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to government data. More than 100,000 have gone missing.
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4:15
Inside Mexico’s gang war
Offensive? Or a ‘crazy marvel’?
General audiences appear to have made their thoughts clear. On film database site IMDB, Emilia Perez gets 5.5 out of 10, while its nine competitors in the running for best picture at the Oscars rate between 7.3, for The Substance, and 8.8 for I’m Still Here.
On review site Rotten Tomatoes, Emilia Perez gets a 72% from critics, but just 17% from audiences; again, the rest of its Oscars competitors range from Wicked’s 88% critics’ score to I’m Still Here’s 96%, or Nickel Boy’s 65% audience score to I’m Still Here’s 99%. The two takeways? The gap is clear whichever way you look at it; watch I’m Still Here.
That’s not to say Emilia Perez does not have its supporters. Speaking after a screening in October, Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro said it was “so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema“, and hailed director Jacques Audiard as “one of the most amazing filmmakers alive”.
A review in US entertainment outlet Deadline in May during Cannes last year was headlined, “Jacques Audiard’s musical is crazy, but also a marvel”, with the writer saying the “sparkle never outshines the essential seriousness of the subject”. In Variety, another US entertainment publication, the headline praised Gascon’s electrifying performance.
Image: L-R: Emilia Perez stars Adriana Paz, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascon at the Golden Globes. Pic: AP/ Chris Pizzello
Paz, who shared the Cannes best actress prize with her co-stars last year, has questioned the criticism about the film being “offensive” to Mexico, saying: “I really want to know why, because I didn’t feel that way.”
Carlos Aguilar, a film critic originally from Mexico City who writes for the Roger Ebert film website, was generally positive in his review, giving the film three out of four stars.
However, he highlights that Emilia Perez is “not a Mexican film” and notes “Mexican audiences have grown accustomed to American perspectives exploiting narco-related afflictions for narratives unconcerned with addressing its root causes”.
Questioning intentions behind these productions is valid, he says, “but to decry Audiard for partaking in the common filmmaking practice of telling stories away from what’s immediately familiar to him would seem an overly simplistic assessment”.
Karla Sofia Gascon’s resurfaced tweets
Image: Gascon at the premiere in Mexico in January. Pic: Ismael Rosas/ EyePix/INSTARimages/ Cover Images via AP
But the criticism from some trans people and some Mexicans is not a good look for a supposedly progressive film about a trans woman in Mexico. All publicity is good publicity does not apply here.
A lot of this criticism, though, had been made before the Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Emilia Perez was still riding high at that point.
The nail in the coffin came after those nominations were announced, when offensive tweets posted by Gascon were unearthed. They were old, but not that old; the first dated back to 2016, but some were more recent.
In the since-deleted posts, Gascon took aim at Muslims’ dress, language and culture in her native Spain and suggested Islam should be banned.
And less than a month after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020, which prompted a global reckoning about police brutality and racism, Gascon called Floyd a drug addict who “very few people ever cared” for.
Writer Sarah Hagi, who screenshotted the posts and shared them, wrote: “This is all from the star of a movie that is campaigning on its progressive values, you really gotta laugh.
Gascon, who was a regular in Mexican telenovelas before transitioning in 2018, issued an apology after the posts emerged, saying that “as someone in a marginalised community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain”.
She added: “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
‘This is an opera, not a criticism of Mexico’
Image: Director Jacques Audiard on set. Pic: Shanna Besson/ Page 114/ Why Not Productions/ Pathe/ France 2 Cinema/ Netflix
But it looks like the damage has been done. While Saldana is still favourite to win best supporting actress at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars, and the film may win gongs for its music and maybe technical accolades, it seems the momentum for taking home any bigger prizes has gone.
As the backlash intensified, Audiard gave an interview to Deadline last week. He said he had not been in touch with Gascon and that he was “very sad” to see the issue “taking up all the space” around the film. What she said in her tweets was “inexcusable”, he added.
The filmmaker also addressed criticism about representation of cartels and drug crime, saying: “Opera has psychological limitations. It seems I’m being attacked in the court of realism.”
Audiard said he never claimed to have made a “realistic” work or a documentary. “For example, I read a review where it said that night markets in Mexico City don’t have photocopiers. Well, in night markets in Mexico City, one also doesn’t sing and dance. You have to accept that is part of the magic here. This is an opera, not a criticism of anything about Mexico.”
Finally, asked if he had any regrets or if there was anything he would do differently, he said the one regret was that the film was not made in Mexico. “And the simple reason for that is that the film funding, the public funding for film in Mexico was not as good for us as what was available to us in France”.
Emilia Perez now heads to the BAFTAs and Oscars embroiled in controversy. But it is not the first. Remember British star Angela Riseborough’s nomination in 2023? Some, like Green Book in 2019, weathered it out to win. And Will Smith won his Oscar just moments after slapgate in 2022.
We’ll see at the BAFTAs on Sunday and at the Oscars next month, how forgiving voters will be about Emilia Perez.
BST Hyde Park festival has cancelled its final night after Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra pulled out of the headline slot.
Lynne, 77, was due to play alongside his band on Sunday but has been forced to withdraw from the event following a “systemic infection”.
The London show was supposed to be a “final goodbye” from ELO following their farewell US tour.
Organisers said on Saturday that Lynne was “heartbroken” at being unable to perform.
A statement read: “Jeff has been battling a systemic infection and is currently in the care of a team of doctors who have advised him that performing is simply not possible at this time nor will he be able to reschedule.
“The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff’s mind today – and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time.”
They later confirmed the whole of Sunday’s event would be cancelled.
“Ticket holders will be refunded and contacted directly by their ticket agent with further details,” another statement said.
Stevie Wonder played the festival on Saturday – now its final event of 2025.
US rock band The Doobie Brothers and blues rock singer Steve Winwood were among those who had been due to perform to before ELO’s headline performance.
The cancellation comes after the band, best known for their hit Mr Blue Sky, pulled out of a performance due to take place at Manchester’s Co-Op Live Arena on Thursday.
ELO was formed in Birmingham in 1970 by Lynne, multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan.
They first split in 1986, before frontman Lynne resurrected the band in 2014.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Image: Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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2:46
Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Image: Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Image: Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.