Director Barry Jenkins, whose film "Moonlight" was declared the best picture winner at the 89th Academy Awards after a shocking mix-up, says the moment was "messy but kind of gorgeous".
During this year's Oscars ceremony, "La La Land" was incorrectly announced the best picture winner by presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
In an interview with Variety, Jenkins said, "It's messy, but it's kind of gorgeous. You have these two groups of people who came together for a second. There's a picture of me hugging Jordan Horowitz (producer of 'La La Land') and Adele Romanski (producer of 'Moonlight') has her arm on his shoulder. That's what the moment was."
Jenkins said when he finally discovered that "Moonlight" had won the Oscar, the first thing came to his mind was to hug Horowitz, who announced the correct winner.
"I had something that I had prepared to say, and that thing went completely out the window. I've been saying that (co-writer) Tarell (Alvin McCraney) and I are that kid in the film, and that kid does not grow up to make a piece of art that gets eight Academy Award nominations.
"It's a dream I never allowed myself to have. When we were sitting there, and that dream of winning didn't come true, I took it off the table. But then I had to very quickly get back into that place. And my first thought was to get to the stage to give Jordan a hug as quickly as possible."
Meanwhile, filmmaker Damien Chazelle, who took home the best director trophy at the ceremony, thought it was all some kind of "prank" at first.
He, however, enjoyed having both casts and crew onstage at the same time.
"That's something Barry and I have talked about. It's weird to be friendly with someone but to feel like there's a mano-a-mano thing, which I guess is the nature of the Oscars. So it was nice to explode that myth a little bit on a big stage," Chazelle said.
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