LONDON – Hollywood stars and UK royalty were due to attend the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, where the German-language antiwar drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” led the pack of nominees.
The visceral depiction of life and death in the trenches of World War I was up for 14 awards, including best picture, while the Irish tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and madcap metaverse romp “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has 10 nominations each.
Actor Richard E. Grant hosted the televised ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall, which was attended by nominees including Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas and Colin Farrell. Guests and presenters include Eddie Redmayne, Brian Cox, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cynthia Erivo, Julianne Moore and Lily James
Heir to the throne Prince William, who is president of the British film academy, is due to attend with his wife Kate, Princess of Wales. Helen Mirren is scheduled to pay tribute to William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September. Mirren portrayed the late monarch on screen in “The Queen” and on stage in “The Audience.”
The awards, known as BAFTAs, are Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards and will be closely watched for clues as to who might win the Oscars on March 12.
The announcement of the BAFTA nominations last month helped propel the brooding, Netflix-backed “All Quiet” into an awards season favorite. Its tally of nominations is a combined record for a non-English-language film, equaling 14 for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2001.
“All Quiet,” “Banshees” and “Everything Everywhere” are all best-picture contenders at the Oscars, with “Everything Everywhere” leading the way with 11 nominations.
Martin McDonagh’s Irish tragicomedy “Banshees” has BAFTA nominations including best picture, best director and best actor, for Farrell. The nominations for “Everything Everywhere” include nods for co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – known collectively as “the Daniels” – and a best actress nomination for Michelle Yeoh.
Baz Lurhmann’s flamboyant musical biopic “Elvis” won nine awards, including best picture.
The BAFTA best-picture nominees are “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Todd Field’s symphonic psychodrama “Tár.”
The 10 nominees for outstanding British film, a separate category, include Charlotte Wells’ 1990s family drama “Aftersun,” Sam Mendes’ semi-autobiographical “Empire of Light” and the smart sex comedy by Sophie Hyde “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.”
Britain’s film academy has introduced changes to increase diversity at the awards in 2020, with no women nominated for best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in leading and supporting categories white performers.
This year there are 11 female directors up for awards in all categories, including documentaries and animated films. But only one of the best director nominees is a woman: Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King.” Other nominees are “All Quiet” director Edward Berger, McDonagh for “Banshees,” Kwan/Scheinert for “Everything Everywhere”, Field for “Tár” and Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, for ” Decision to Leave.”
Leading contenders for the actress are Yeoh; Cate Blanchett for “Tár”: Viola Davis for “The Woman King”; Danielle Deadwyler for “Till”; Ana de Armas for “Blonde” and Emma Thompson for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.”
The best-actor category pits Farrell against Austin Butler for “Elvis”; Brendan Fraser for “The Whale”; Daryl McCormack for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” Paul Mescal for “Aftersun” and Bill Nighy for “Living.”
Three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell is set to become the first costume designer to be awarded the academy’s highest honor, the BAFTA partnership.
The violent world outside of showbiz interfered with the awards when Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, who works for the investigative website Bellingcat, said he was “banned” from the awards due to a public security risk. He appeared in the BAFTA-nominated documentary “Navalny,” about jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
The Metropolitan Police said it would not comment “on an individual’s safety or the advice they have been given.
“However, the situation faced by journalists around the world and the fact that some journalists face bad intentions in foreign states while in the UK is a fact that we are completely concerned about,” the force said in a statement.
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