In recent years, cinematographer Khaled Khateeb wasn’t able to witness his documentary The White Helmets win Best Documentary Short last year because of the travel ban that’s in place in the U.S. Additionally, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi revealed that he would skip the Oscars because of the existing travel bans, and his movie The Salesman went on to win Best Foreign Language Film.
This is not the first time that a talent has been unable to attend the Academy Awards because of travel issues tied to the current political climate.