LONDON (AP) – Hollywood stars and British royals will attend the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, where German-language anti-war drama ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ tops the shortlist of nominees.
The visceral portrayal of life and death in the trenches of World War I is nominated for 14 awards including Best Picture, while Irish tragic comedy The Banshees of Inisherin and insane Metaverse hoopla Everything Everywhere All at Once have 10 each received nominations.
Actor Richard E. Grant will moderate the televised ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall, which will be attended by nominees 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, will be attending along with his wife Kate, Princess of Wales. Helen Mirren is 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.
Known as BAFTAs, the awards are Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards and are being closely watched for clues as to who might win at the Oscars on March 12.
The announcement of the BAFTA nominations last month helped make the dark Netflix-supported film All Quiet an awards-season favorite. The number of nominations is a collective record for a non-English language film, equaling 14 for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2001.
‘All Quiet’, ‘Banshees’ and ‘Everything Everywhere’ are all contenders for Best Picture at the Oscars, where ‘Everything Everywhere’ has a leading 11 nominations.
Martin McDonagh’s Irish tragic comedy The Banshees has received BAFTA nominations for Farrell for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The nominations for “Everything Everywhere” include nominations for co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – collectively known as “The Daniels” – and a best actress nomination for Michelle Yeoh.
Baz Lurhmann’s extravagant musical biopic Elvis wins 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 Sophie Hyde’s smart sex comedy Good Luck to You, Leo Grande “.
The British Film Academy introduced changes to increase the diversity of awards in 2020 when, for the seventh consecutive year, there were no women nominated for Best Director and all 20 nominees in the Leading and Supporting Actor categories were white.
This year, 11 female directors will receive awards in all categories, including documentaries and animated films. But only one of the top nominees for best director is female: Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Woman King. The 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.
Contenders for the leading lady 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.
In the Best Actor category, Farrell competes 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 Academy Award winner Sandy Powell becomes the first costume designer to be honored with the Academy’s top honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.
The rough world outside of showbiz weighed in on the awards ceremony when Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, who works for investigative website Bellingcat, said he was “banned” from the awards ceremonies because of a risk to public safety. He stars in the BAFTA-nominated documentary Navalny, about imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
The Metropolitan Police said they would not “comment on the safety of any person or any advice that may have been given to them.
“However, the situation that journalists around the world are facing and the fact that some journalists are exposed to the hostile intentions of foreign states while in the UK is a reality that we are absolutely concerned about,” he said the force in a statement.
Jill Lawless, The Associated Press
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