As one half of the Daniels writing and directing team, Daniel Kwan is one of the people largely responsible for one of this year’s most surprising Oscar contenders, the sci-fi comedy All everywhere, all at once— which is, to our knowledge, the only Nominated for Best Picture in the Long History of Academy in which martial artists give each other combat-vital power-ups by literally pushing things on their own butts. (Although it’s been a minute since we last watched At the water’s edge.)
This too makes Kwan partiallyOtherwise responsible ForSO at least associated with, the reactions the film received from fans, most of whom were thrilled, energetic, and kind, in keeping with the spirit of a film that ends up being optimistic about people’s potential to be good. But also occasionally notwwhich might explain why Kwan (not for the first time) issued a brief request to fans ahead of the film’s performance at tomorrow night’s awards, which we’ll paraphrase as follows: Please don’t act like some raging jerks if EEAAO won’t win any prizes.
kwan was more eloquent, of course, jump on twitter (accompanied by a notification that it will be scarce on social media for a while) make one’s request:
The last thing I ask of all fans of our film is to be gracious and kind tomorrow, especially if we don’t win any awards you might have thought we deserved. I love each of the films we face for different reasons. More importantly, I’ve come to love the people behind each of the films as I’ve gotten to know them this year. I already have everything I could possibly want, and there’s no need to be angry on our behalf.
I’m crossing my fingers that some of these lessons of interdimensional empathy are incorporated; Meanwhile, Kwan also posted an Instagram post over the weekend with more personal thoughts on the year since the movie debuted on SXSW; it’s a cute thing. All everywhere, all at once is nominated for 11 awards this year, with Kwan personally for two, for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay.