Academy unveils new ‘forfeiture process’ after review prompted by case of disgraced Bafta winner Huw Edwards
The British Academy of Film and Television will be able to strip future winners of their awards in cases of “proven dishonesty” or if they’re convicted of a serious criminal offence.
New provisions added to the Bafta rulebook give the body the power to retrospectively revoke competition honours, starting with winners in 2025.
Continue reading...Comedian says he does not let Parkinson’s disease dictate who he is, as he speaks of delight at accolade
Sir Billy Connolly said he does not let his Parkinson’s disease dictate who he is as he spoke of his honour at receiving this year’s Bafta fellowship.
The 79-year-old comedian, known as the Big Yin, will be celebrated for a career spanning more than five decades at the awards ceremony on 8 May. The fellowship is the highest Bafta accolade given to recognise outstanding and exceptional contribution in film, games or television.
Continue reading...Cherish Oteka’s film is about a former police officer who discusses his memories of homophobia and racial profiling in the Met
The Guardian documentary The Black Cop has won the Bafta for best short film.
Directed by Cherish Oteka and produced by Emma Cooper, The Black Cop is about Gamal “G” Turawa, a former Metropolitan police officer who explores his memories of homophobia, racial profiling and racial harassment in his early career.
Continue reading...After years of great roles in comedies such as The Thick of It and Moving On, the actor is now being feted for her devastating dramatic performance in After Love. She talks about ‘serious’ acting, a breakdown in her 20s and learning to fight for herself
When Joanna Scanlan arrives, she is hidden beneath a yellow raincoat, glasses steamed up, blown through the door as if the gathering storm outside has washed her ashore. “I am so sorry for dragging you out here,” she says, laughing slightly hysterically, as she sheds the layers. Scanlan is filming in rural Wales – she, her husband and their dog are renting a cottage nearby – and this cafe, also in the middle of nowhere, was her suggestion. Even the women who work in the cafe were surprised to be called in. We are the only customers, but there are pots of tea and welsh cakes, and Scanlan is great company, so all is well.
She grew up in Wales, so this job – filming The Light in the Hall, a psychological thriller, for which she has had to learn some Welsh – is something of a homecoming. Being here is also a detachment from London, and everything that goes with her job outside of being on set or stage – the bit, you sense, she could take or leave. And so she’s a bit distanced from the buzz around her Bafta nomination for best actress for her role in the extraordinary film After Love. “When you sit here in Tywi Valley, just learning your lines for tomorrow, it’s hard to take that in,” she says. “I feel very long in the tooth to be coming to this sort of prominence.”
Continue reading...The actor, 43, on hiding from her children in bed, hanging out with Matt LeBlanc and her love of Wotsits
I do all my writing in bed. Not due to decadence, but because it’s the place I can hide from my children most effectively.
My recent Bafta nomination genuinely came as a huge shock. I assumed it was Breeders that had been shortlisted, not me [for female performance in a comedy programme]. When I finally clicked, I blurted out, “Good God!” I don’t think I’ll win, but if by some miracle I did, my kids would immediately steal the trophy and put hats on it.
Continue reading...Academy says it was in ‘impossible’ situation, but it faces questions over delays in offering safeguarding to alleged victims
When Bafta announced its plan to give Noel Clarke the award for outstanding British contribution to cinema on 29 March 2021, the academy’s film committee chair, Marc Samuelson, described him as an “inspiration … [we] cannot think of a more deserving recipient for this year’s award”.
Others in Britain’s film industry disagreed. Within hours, Bafta was contacted jointly by three industry figures alerting it to the existence of several allegations of verbal abuse, bullying and sexual harassment against Clarke.
Continue reading...When Noel Clarke appeared on stage at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 April to collect his Bafta, the typically self-assured actor looked a little on edge. Viewers might have concluded that Clarke was simply overwhelmed: he was clutching one of the most prestigious accolades bestowed by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the prize for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.
Yet there were other reasons why Clarke – and Bafta – may have felt preoccupied.
Continue reading...With daring shows such as I May Destroy You and I Hate Suzie, there’s much to celebrate. But ITV will rightly feel aggrieved as Quiz and Des miss out
The good news is that the 2021 British Academy television awards recognise – as these trophies have not always done – glittering fresh genius where it appears.
Two daringly written and visualised dramas with first-person titles that include an aggressive verb – the BBC’s I May Destroy You and Sky Atlantic’s I Hate Suzie – receive eight and five nominations respectively. Each is driven by an exceptional creative talent in, respectively, Michaela Coel and Billie Piper. Both series explore the psychology and experience of younger women in a graphic and tragi-comic detail going beyond even Fleabag, a pioneer in that direction.
Continue reading...An immaculate set of choices this year were capped by best film for Nomadland and best British film for Promising Young Woman – with Anthony Hopkins’ honour the cherry on top
This year’s Bafta list has confirmed the amazingly meteoric career ascendancy of Chloé Zhao, the Chinese-born film-maker whose debut movie was just six years ago and who was unknown outside arthouse-connoisseur circles until relatively recently; she now is set to rule awards season with a remarkable film displaying her now fully developed authorial signature.
Related: Baftas 2021: Nomadland wins big as Anthony Hopkins and Promising Young Woman surprise
Continue reading...All the action as Bafta goes virtual for its star-studded awards ceremony and the industry’s best-known names wait with bated breath
Here’s our round-up of tonight awards, for people who accidentally clicked onto a liveblog when they just wanted to know what happened.
Here’s some analysis: the music that the Baftas used to soundtrack that 12-minute summary at the end of the show was exactly the same music that the BBC used in the Repair Shop advert that directly followed it. Wait, that’s not analysis. That’s just an observation. Sorry.
Continue reading...The British Palestinian is up for an Oscar with her debut, filmed at a notorious Israeli flashpoint called Checkpoint 300. The London-based director talks about her shocking visits to the Middle East
Farah Nabulsi was at home in west London when she found out her film The Present had been nominated for the Oscar for best live action short. She’d persuaded her teenage sons to stay home and watch the announcement. When she heard her name, she jumped up on the table. Her eldest looked at her as if she’d gone mad. He’d got it into his head that this was the actual ceremony and she had lost. “He was like, ‘Why are you so happy? They didn’t pick you.’ He killed the moment.”
The film is Nabulsi’s directing debut, a powerful 20-minute piece of humanist cinema about a Palestinian man, Yusef (Saleh Bakri), who wants to surprise his wife with a fridge as an anniversary gift. He takes the couple’s young daughter, Yasmine (Mariam Kanj), shopping. But their big day out is ruined by two encounters with Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Yasmine is a witness to her dad’s humiliation – she tugs on his sleeve, reminding him to bite his tongue, to swallow the soldiers’ insults. It is a study of injustice that – like the best shorts – doesn’t try to cram too much in.
Continue reading...Rocks and Nomadland top scorecard in first British film academy shortlist since radical changes made to improve inclusivity
Four women and three foreign-language directors have been nominated for this year’s Bafta awards in a list whose reach and inclusivity come as a marked contrast to last year’s nominations.
Related: Baftas 2021: the full list of nominations
Continue reading...At Sunday night’s Baftas, film stars, royals and the viewing public were reminded that the Syrian people should not be forgotten – as airstrikes and barrel bombs still rain down on Idlib province, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee (Report, 4 February).
As she accepted the award for best documentary, the director and narrator of For Sama, Waad Al-Kateab, told the world that the “people of Idlib should hear your voice now”.
Continue reading...Actor’s speech addressing issues of diversity and reputation meets with ‘uncomfortable silence’ – and much praise
Joaquin Phoenix’s powerful broadside against the body that awarded him the best actor prize on Sunday night has met with a chorus of praise across the film industry.
In his speech, Phoenix said he felt conflicted by his victory “because so many of my fellow actors who are deserving don’t have that same privilege”.
Continue reading...The Baftas awards frontrunner joins protestors on Tower Bridge in London to campaign for a meat-free world
Oscar and Bafta nominee Joaquin Phoenix has made a plea for people to “go vegan” as he led an animal equality protest in central London.
The actor gathered activists for a protest where he dropped a 390-square-foot banner from Tower Bridge that declared: “Factory farming destroys our planet. Go vegan.”
Continue reading...From Little Women and Bombshell on one side and The Irishman and The Two Popes on the other, the Academy will have to tread a careful line picking this year’s nominations
British politicians are not the only people preparing for the campaign trail; Hollywood’s awards-season schmooze offensive has also begun. Gala ball dates are being added to diaries, academy voters are being targeted and a clutch of frontrunners is emerging. Trends – most of them worrying – are also appearing.
In summary, this year it is “boy films” v “girl films”. A gaping gender divide seems to have split the field. On the girls’ side, we have two well-received titles: Bombshell, dramatising the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News, and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women. Both are stories of female defiance at the male-dominated status quo, and are cast with an embarrassment of awards-bait: Little Women features Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Laura Dern; Bombshell has Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Allison Janney.
Continue reading...The Apprentice host says his wife is upset he has never been allowed to keep a statuette
Awards season is in full swing but one man feels particularly hard done by: Alan Sugar.
The host of The Apprentice has called for himself to be given his own special award in recognition of the reality show’s success, after revealing that his wife is upset that he has never been allowed to keep a Bafta statuette.
Continue reading...Celebrated actor who rose to fame in the ‘kitchen sink’ era before evolving into one of the screen greats of the postwar period, has died
• Albert Finney – a life in pictures
Albert Finney, who forged his reputation as one of the leading actors of Britain’s early 60s new wave cinema, has died aged 82 after a short illness, his family have announced. In 2011, he disclosed he had been suffering from kidney cancer.
A publicist told the Guardian that Finney died of a chest infection at the Royal Marsden hospital, which specialises in cancer treatment, just outside London. His wife, Pene, and son, Simon, were by his side.
Continue reading...Offbeat period drama starring Olivia Colman scores 12 nods, while Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma, A Star is Born and First Man all trail with seven
Yorgos Lanthimos’s raucous period romp about a high-stakes love triangle in the court of Queen Anne continues its ascension to this season’s awards favourite with 12 nominations at this year’s British Academy film awards.
The film, which swept the board at the British independent film awards in December, with a record 10 wins, is a contender in all the major categories other than best actor.
Continue reading...