Oscar ceremony ‘surreal’ for Potterville winner

TUESDAY, Feb. 26 — Sam Davis remembers the Academy Awards as a “blackout.”

“In the moment all I really remember is watching a lot of our heroes look up at us. It was surreal,” Davis, a Potterville native who won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short for “Period. End of Sentence.”

Davis and crew traveled to Hapur, India, where they learned more about the social stigma surrounding menstruation.

Standing alongside Davis on Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles were the film’s director, Rayka Zehtabchi, and one of its Melissa Burton.

Zehtabchi joked that she was, “not crying because I’m on my period or anything.” She said she “could not believe a film about menstruation won an Oscar.”

Little of which Davis recalled, he said.

“I didn't really remember much of Rayka’s speech. Obviously it was just sheer excitement. When we went backstage, I said ‘Rayka … What did you say?’”

Also attending with Davis was one of the main interviewees from “Period. End of Sentence,” Sneha.

“To be there with her, to see her again, after a year and a half since we were in the villages last, was really special. That in itself, just to be reunited with her was really cool,” Davis said. “Then to experience the Oscars through her perspective was awesome. She was overwhelmed, but I think she had a good experience.”

Davis now moves onto pre-production of a film he will direct, “Cents,” a drama centered around the 2002 Potterville train derailment.

“We had our first casting call — we were expecting a hundred people and 744 came,” Davis said. “It was an overwhelmingly positive response to a movie being made at home.”

Another picture, “Vice,” which won the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, featured the talents of Flint, Michigan’s Erik Porn — the nephew of Bernie Porn, who owns and operates the polling firm EPIC-MRA in Lansing. Erik Porn could not be reached for a comment.

“Period. End of Sentence” can be streamed on Netflix.