And the Oscar goes to...

The Academy Awards (= la Cerimonia degli Oscar) take place in February at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. 

The Academy Awards are also known as the Oscars. Oscar is the name of the statuette (a small statue) that is given to each winner. 

They celebrate not only actors and specific movies but also the people who do all the behind-the-scenes work (the work that you don’t see!): directors, producers, writers, composers, costume designers, lighting (= luci) and sound (= suoni) technicians...

 Marie Antoinette won the Oscar for Best Costume Design in 2007

Each award, however, is handed out (= consegnato) by a presenter (= ospite). The presenter is usually another actor or actress. The presenter announces the category and then usually says, “And the nominees are . . .” The presenter will then read the names of the nominees. (Presenters read their lines from a teleprompter (= gobbo) – an electronic device that shows the words to read.

Once the presenter has finished announcing the nominees, he/she then says, “And the Oscar goes to . . .” or “And the Academy Award goes to . . .” and opens the envelope (= busta) to read the name of the winner. The envelope is sealed (= sigillata) so that no one knows the winner until that moment! 

The winner then comes to the stage to accept his/her award and make a short acceptance speech (= discorso di ringraziamento)

 

Lady Gaga's acceptance speech in 2019 

"Ho lavorato duramente per molto tempo e non si tratta di vincere.
Si tratta di non mollare.
Se avete un sogno, lottate.
Se avete DISCIPLINA PER UNA PASSIONE, non si tratta di quante volte sarete rifiutati, cadrete o sarete maltrattati.
Si tratta di quante volte sarete coraggiosi e continuerete a lottare."