‘CODA’ Featuring Duluth’s Daniel Durant Wins Best Picture Oscar

LOS ANGELES (AP) – After a movie year often light on crowds, the Academy Awards named an unabashed crowd-pleaser, the deaf family drama “CODA,” best picture Sunday, handing Hollywood’s top award to a streaming service for the first time.

Sian Heder’s “CODA,” which first premiered at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in winter 2021, started out as an underdog but gradually emerged as the Oscars’ feel-good favorite.

It also had one very deep-pocketed backer in Apple TV+, which scored its first best picture Academy Award on Sunday, less than three years after launching the service.

Duluth’s Daniel Durant was a star in the film.  Here’s an interview with him during a special screening of the film last year at the West Theatre. 

“Having grown up in Duluth, and having all the people here to watch this on the big screen with me really means so much to me, all the people who have kind of encouraged me and supported me as I’ve developed my career and kind of gotten to the place where I am,” Durant signed in ASL during an interview with FOX 21 last August during the special screening.