Kevin Durant was a double winner Sunday night, his Nets victors over the Suns in his return from a three-game absence, and his film a winner over four others on the biggest night in Hollywood.
That’s right: KD added an Oscar to his trophy case on Sunday night, when the film “Two Distant Strangers” won the Best Live Action Short Film award at Sunday’s 93rd annual Academy Awards.
Durant and Rich Kleiman, his business partner in Thirty Five Ventures, were executive producers for the film, which starred Brooklyn-born rapper-actor Jo-Vaughn “Joey Bada$$” Scott. Written and directed by comedian Travon Free, the film, which “examines the deaths of Black Americans during encounters with police through the eyes of a character trapped in a time loop that keeps ending in his death,” was released in November, and picked up for distribution by Netflix earlier this month.
Utah Jazz guard Mike Conley was also an executive producer, and the win makes Durant and Conley the second/third NBA players to win Oscars – the first being Kobe Bryant, who wrote and narrated “Dear Basketball,” the five-minute film about his love of the game that won the Best Animated Short Film Award at the 2018 Academy Awards.
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