Politics & Power Quote by Michel Hazanavicius

There’s a sly humility baked into Hazanavicius’s line, but it’s not false modesty so much as a quiet flex about how movies actually get made: in uncertainty, not inevitability. By stressing that “winning awards… wasn’t the point,” he punctures the retroactive myth-making that often follows a hit, where every risky choice gets rewritten as an awards strategy. The punch of the second sentence - “We didn’t even have an American distributor” - does the real work. It’s a pragmatic detail that instantly re-scales the story from red carpets to spreadsheets, reminding you that prestige isn’t just earned; it’s also routed through gatekeepers, markets, and timing.

The subtext is a critique of the way the industry launders surprise into destiny. If you don’t even have U.S. distribution, you’re not campaigning; you’re hustling for basic visibility. That makes any later awards attention feel less like the result of machine politics and more like a genuine cultural accident - a film connecting beyond its expected borders. It also reframes “point” as something closer to craft or conviction: the filmmakers were building the movie they wanted, not the one the awards ecosystem rewards.

Context matters here because American distribution is shorthand for global legitimacy in contemporary cinema. Hazanavicius is pointing at an uncomfortable truth: many celebrated films begin as long shots, and the distance between “small project” and “awards contender” is often bridged by circumstances no artist controls.