Moments after winning the Oscar for best actress, Michelle Yeoh hopped on a video call with her mother, who was back home in Malaysia, watching the ceremony with a crowd of supporters, reports BBC.

"Malaysia boleh!" Janet Yeoh said blowing kisses to her daughter.

"For all the little boys and girls who look like me," Yeoh said.

"This is a beacon of hope and possibilities," she continued, holding up the trophy as the first Asian woman and only the second woman of colour to be honoured as best actress in the award's 95-year history.

Yeoh - and the sci-fi comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once in which she played a Chinese immigrant - was a frontrunner and a favourite to win but her victory still had the power to surprise and thrill an audience whom Hollywood recognition has long eluded. And the elation was there to see.

At the watch party in Kuala Lumpur, Janet Yeoh was promptly drowned in news camera lights as soon as her daughter was proclaimed the winner.

Supporters dressed in gowns and tuxedoes raised their hands in the air and shouted for joy. And billboards on display on the highways of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital, proclaimed her as the pride of the country.

Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul