The atomic epic “Oppenheimer” won seven awards, including best film, direction and actor, at the 77th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) on Sunday, cementing her front-runner status for next month’s Oscars.
The gothic fantasy “Poor Things” took home five awards and the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” won three.
Christopher Nolan took his first BAFTA for best director for “Oppenheimer,” and Cillian Murphy won best actor for playing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
Murphy said he was grateful to embody such a “colossally” complex character.
Emma Stone was named best actress for portraying the wild and feisty Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” a steampunk-style visual spectacle that won awards for visual effects, production design, costume design and makeup and hairstyling.
“Oppenheimer” had 13 nominations, but did not break the record of nine trophies, set in 1971 by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
It won the best picture race against “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomie d’une chute” (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and “The Holdovers.” ” (“Those who remain”). “Oppenheimer” also won trophies for editing, cinematography and original score, as well as best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph was named best supporting actress for playing a boarding school cook in “The Holdovers” and said she felt a “responsibility that I don’t take lightly” to tell the stories of underrepresented people like her character Mary.
“Oppenheimer” faced stiff competition in what was widely considered a banner year for film and an awards season energized by the end of the actors and screenwriters strikes that paralyzed Hollywood for months.
“The Zone of Interest,” a British-produced film filmed in Poland with a mostly German cast, was named best British film and best foreign language film, a first-ever combination, and also took home the award for best sound, which has been described as the real star of the film.
Jonathan Glazer’s haunting drama unfolds in a family’s home next to the walls of the Auschwitz death camp, whose horrors are heard and hinted at, rather than seen.
“Walls are not new since before or after the Holocaust, and it seems clear at this point that we should be concerned about the deaths of innocent people in Gaza, Yemen, Mariupol or Israel,” said producer James Wilson. “Thank you for recognizing a film that asks us to think about those spaces.”
The Ukrainian war film “20 Days in Mariupol,” produced by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline,” won best documentary.
“This is not about us,” said filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who captured the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city with an AP crew. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”
Chernov said the history of the city and its fall into Russian occupation “is a symbol of struggle and a symbol of faith. Thank you for empowering our voice and let’s continue fighting.”
The awards ceremony, hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant, who arrived on stage in a plaid tartan and sequined blouse while holding a dog named Bark Ruffalo, was a dazzling, British-accented appetizer to the Awards. the Hollywood Academy. The BAFTAs are being closely watched for clues as to who might win at the Oscars on March 10.
The award for best original screenplay went to the French court drama “Anatomie d’une chute.” The film about a woman on trial for the death of her husband was written by director Justine Triet and her partner, Arthur Harari.
“It’s fiction, and we’re doing reasonably well,” Triet joked.
Cord Jefferson won best adapted screenplay for the satirical “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American novelist.
Jefferson said he hoped the film’s success “maybe change the minds of the people who are in charge of greenlighting movies and TV shows, allow them to be less risk averse.”
The historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” had nine nominations for the film awards, officially called EE BAFTAs, but went home empty-handed.
There were also snubs for the biopic about conductor Leonard Bernstein “Maestro,” which had seven nominations but did not win any awards. Neither did the pain-filled love story “All of Us Strangers,” with six nominations, and the class war comedy-drama “Saltburn,” with five.
“Barbie,” the half of 2023’s summer smash “Barbenheimer” and the highest-grossing film of the year, also went home empty-handed after receiving five nominations. “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig did not earn a directing nomination for either the BAFTAs or the Oscars, in what was considered by many to be a major snub.
The British Film Academy introduced changes to increase the diversity of the awards in 2020, when no women were nominated for best director for the seventh year in a row and all 20 nominees in the acting categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among this year’s six best directing nominees.
The rising actor award, the only category decided by public vote, went to Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of “How to Have Sex.”
Ahead of the ceremony, nominees including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri walked the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall, alongside presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett , Idirs Elba and David Beckham.
The guest of honor was Prince William, in his role as president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife, Catalina, who is recovering from abdominal surgery she underwent last month.
The ceremony included musical performances by “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, singing “Time After Time,” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who performed her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which returned to the charts. after appearing in “Saltburn.”
Film curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni Pan-African Film Archive, was honored for her outstanding British contribution to cinema, while actress Samantha Morton received the academy’s highest honour, the BAFTA Fellowship.
Morton, who grew up in foster care and children’s institutions, said “representation matters.”
“The stories we tell have the power to change people’s lives,” he said. “Cinema changed my life, transformed me and brought me here.
“I dedicate this award to all the children in care, or who have been in care, who did not survive.”
(AP Source)
Source: Gestion
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