• Filmmaker Sean Baker won four Oscars for his movie ‘Anora’ on March 3.

• ‘Anora’ won five Academy Awards including Best Actress. 

• In addition to the Best Picture, Sean Baker won awards for Best Director, Original Screenplay and Editing to tie the record for most Oscars won by an individual in one year with Walt Disney, who won for four different films in 1954.

• Walt Disney won for ‘The Living Desert’, ‘The Alaskan Eskimo’, ‘Bear Country’ and ‘Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom’. Disney was also nominated that year for ‘Ben and Me’ and ‘Rugged Bear’.

• It has been a long road to Hollywood’s grandest stage for the 54-year-old Baker, who is known for casting non-actors and real sex workers in his movies.

• ‘Anora’ had won the Palme d’Or on its debut at the Cannes film festival in May 2024.

• Born on February 26, 1971, Baker was initiated in cinema by his mother, a teacher. He got the bug at the age of six when he saw Boris Karloff playing the monster in ‘Frankenstein’.

• His first feature, ‘Four Letter Words’, was released in 2000, shortly after his graduation from New York University, but his life spiralled out of control because of a heroin addiction.

• Emerging from that dark place, Baker was determined to stay in the industry, even if he was just clinging on by his fingernails.

• He was a long way from following in the footsteps of his heroes — John Cassavetes, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh — but his story was not over yet.

• He made ‘Take Out’ (2004) about a Chinese immigrant in New York trying to pay off his debts to a smuggler.

• But it was ‘Starlet’ (2012), about a porn actress, that got him interested in sex workers, putting him in touch with prostitutes, escorts and exotic dancers, many of whom became friends.

• Baker’s next film, ‘Tangerine’, was shot on iPhones and followed two transgender prostitutes through the streets of LA on one crazy day.

• He followed it with ‘The Florida Project’, about a six-year-old girl living in a cheap motel with her mother, a stripper who loses her job and begins soliciting sex work online.

• ‘Red Rocket’, the ‘Lolita’-inspired tale of a porn star returning to his small Texas hometown to groom a young girl, earned Baker typically sterling reviews.

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