Oscars 2015: Alejandro Inarritu wins Best Director for Birdman, urges 'respect' for Mexican immigrants
This was the Mexican director fifth nomination
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Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Inarritu won the Oscar for best director on Sunday for Birdman, his deeply satirical take on show business.
This was the first Academy Award for Inarritu, 51, whose film stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up, former superhero actor trying to make an improbable comeback with his own Broadway play.
"I am very, very thankful, grateful, humbly honored by the Academy for this incredible recognition," he said. "This is crazy."
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He praised his fellow best director nominees, saying "our work will only be judged by time."
He hailed the win as a triumph for Mexico and said he "he prayed and hoped [the country] can build the government that we deserve" and urged Americans to treat immigrants "with respect".
Inarritu's best director win makes it two years in a row that the honor has gone to a Mexican filmmaker. His friend, Alfonso Cuaron, won the Oscar last year for Gravity, the 3-D space thriller starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.
The Associated Press said that Inarritu had faced stiff competition for the best director category from fellow filmmaker Richard Linklater and his coming-of-age tale "Boyhood," which was filmed over 12 years using the same cast.
Previous feature films by Inarritu, Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), and Biutiful (2010), have all received Oscar nominations in various categories.
(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Sandra Maler and Ken Wills)
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