‘Favourite’, ‘Roma’ win big at British Academy Awards
Malek and Colman win top acting honors
LONDON, Feb 11, (Agencies): Tragicomic royal drama “The Favourite” and Mexican family memoir “Roma” split the honors with multiple wins each at Sunday’s British Academy Film Awards – victories that suggest a wind of change may be blowing through the movie industry.
“The Favourite” won seven trophies including best British film and best actress for OIivia Colman, who plays Britain’s 18th century Queen Anne in the female-centric drama.
Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma”, which centers on the nanny to a middle-class Mexico City family, took prizes for best picture, director, cinematography and foreign-language film.
Winners relished the symbolism of their victories.
“Thank you for celebrating our female-dominated movie about women in power,” said “The Favourite” writer Deborah Davis, who won the original screenplay award alongside co-writer Tony McNamara.
Cuaron thanked the film’s backer, Netflix, for having the courage to support “a black and white film about a domestic worker” that is not in English.
He said the extent to which the film has been embraced “in an age where fear and anger are proposed to divide us means the world to me.”
Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” snapped up the outstanding British film and screenplay awards as well as prizes for its opulent production design, its extravagant costumes, larger-than-life hair and makeup and the performances of Colman and supporting actress Rachel Weisz.
“This is for all three of us,” Colman said, speaking of Weisz and the film’s other star, Emma Stone. “It’s got my name on it but we can scratch on some other ones.”
The best-actor trophy went to Rami Malek for his electric turn as Queen front man Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Mahershala Ali was named best supporting actor as a concert pianist touring the 1960s Deep South in “Green Book”.
Other winners included Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” for best adapted screenplay and the Bradley Cooperdirected “A Star is Born” for music.
The awards, known as BAFTAs, will be scoured for clues on who might triumph at Hollywood’s Academy Awards on Feb 24. “Roma” and “The Favourite” each have 10 Oscar nominations.
The main difference with the Oscars is that at the British awards, real royalty mixes with the Hollywood variety.
Prince William, and his wife, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge – wearing a white, off-the-shoulder Alexander McQueen dress – joined Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, Timothee Chalamet and other film stars for the black-tie ceremony at Royal Albert Hall.
“Absolutely Fabulous” star Joanna Lumley was the gently risque host.
William, who is president of the British film academy, presented its top honor, a BAFTA Fellowship, to film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, longtime collaborator of Martin Scorsese.
British academy voters all but ignored superhero blockbuster “Black Panther”, which is up for best picture at the Oscars and took top prize at the SAG awards last month. It had a single BAFTA nomination, for visual effects, which it won. One of its stars, Letitia Wright, was named Rising Star, the only category decided through a public vote. The London-raised actress spoke of her own past struggles with depression and urged others not to give up.
The red carpet glamour unfolded against a backdrop of soul-searching and scandal about abuses in the entertainment industry.
Last week, the British academy suspended director Bryan Singer’s nomination as part of the team behind “Bohemian Rhapsody” after four men accused him of sexually assaulting them when they were minors.
BAFTA said the alleged abuse was “completely unacceptable” and incompatible with its values. Singer, who was fired while “Bohemian Rhapsody” was in mid-production in 2017, denies the allegations. The film itself is still nominated.
At last year’s BAFTAs ceremony, many women wore black as a symbol of opposition to harassment, abuse and inequality in the wake of allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
White dresses and colorful frocks were prominent on many stars this year, along with a sense of hope that things are, finally, changing.
A British wing of the “Time’s Up” campaign founded last year is vowing to keep the campaign going and to double the number of women in film, on and off screen. The number of female nominees was up this year, but there was criticism of the academy’s failure to nominate any female filmmakers in the best-director category. Only one woman has ever won a BAFTA directing prize, Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010.
BAFTA chairwoman Pippa Harris said only 10 percent of films entered for this year’s awards were directed by women.
“It needs to be 50 percent,” said Harris, who called the gender imbalance an industry-wide problem.
“There has been a traditional problem with getting females to be noticed in terms of their TV work and then get picked up to make feature films,” she said. “Men seem to find that transition much easier.”
Cuaron won a record four personal BAFTAs for a single film from a record six personal nominations, including best director and cinematography. “Roma” also won the BAFTA for film not in the English language. Cuaron’s four wins bring his total BAFTA wins to seven having previously won best director and best British film for
‘BlacKkKlansman’
the audience for her speech. She started by thanking “All the producers, obvs. We’re having an amazing night aren’t we? We’re going to get so pissed later.”
The actress then went on to thank her co-stars Weisz and Stone, calling them “the coolest honor guard anyone could have.” Colman said they were all leads and it was “weird” only one of them could be nominated for lead. “This is for all three of us,” said Colman. “It’s got my name on it but we can scratch in some other names.”
Weisz won best supporting actress for “The Favourite” beating out co-star Stone, who was also nominated. Weisz said: “I had the most extraordinary luck in that I played opposite two of the most glorious women: Olivia Colman and Emma Stone.” It is Weisz’s first BAFTA having been nominated once before for “The Constant Gardener”, for which she won an Oscar. Her win meant “Vice” actress Amy Adams went home empty-handed for a 7th time.
First-time nominee Rami Malek won the best actor award. The actor thanked Freddie Mercury, who he called “the greatest outsider of them of all” for being “unwavering, unflinching and uncompromising in every way.” “Bohemian Rhapsody” also won for best sound.
Mahershala Ali won best supporting actor for Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book”. “The work itself has always been the reward for me so to get this sort of thing is always a bit surreal,” said Ali. It is Ali’s first BAFTA having been nominated in the same category two years ago for “Moonlight”, for which he won an Oscar.
Picking up the original screenplay award for “The Favourite”, writer Deborah Davis, who wrote the first draft of the screenplay 20 years ago, thanked BAFTA for “celebrating our female-dominated movie about women in power.”
Costume designer Sandy Powell picked up her third BAFTA from 15 nominations for “The Favourite”, beating her own work on “Mary Poppins Returns”, which was also nominated. Mark Coulier was less lucky in the make-up and hair category having been nominated twice for both “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Stan & Ollie”, but losing out to Nadia Stacey, also for “The Favourite”.
British-Guyanese actress Letitia Wright won the EE Rising Star Award, the only award voted for by the public. “I want to thank everybody who gave me a chance,” said Wright. Saying she had previously considered giving up acting but that her faith had helped her through, she encouraged “anybody that is going through a tough time” to know that “God made you and loves you. Let your light shine.”
Last year’s rising star award went to Wright’s “Black Panther” co-star Daniel Kaluuya. “Black Panther” picked up this year’s BAFTA for special visual effects.
Spike Lee won his first BAFTA with a win for “BlacKkKlansman” in the adapted screenplay category. Lee thanked the film’s real-life subject Ron Stallworth for infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. “Brooklyn’s in the house,” cried out the acclaimed director from the stage.
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” took home the BAFTA for best animated film. “Animation is not a genre, it is a medium, and that medium is film,” said writer-producer Phil Lord, who previously won in the same category for “The Lego Movie”.
Free-climbing documentary “Free Solo” won the award for best documentary. “It has been an incredible year for non-fiction films and we’re just proud to be a part of it,” said co-producer and co-director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. The film is already UK documentary specialist Dogwoof’s biggest hit in the market having grossed 1.7 million pounds ($2.1 million) and will enter the all-time top ten highest grossing documentaries in the UK this week. Hank Corwin took home his first BAFTA for his editing on Adam McKay’s “Vice”. Corwin had previously been nominated for McKay’s “The Big Short”.
The night’s biggest snub was to “First Man”, which entered the night with seven nominations, equal to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Roma” and “A Star is Born”, but went home emptyhanded. Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” was unable to convert any of its four nominations into wins; while “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, “Mary Queen of Scots”, “Mary Poppins Returns” and “Stan & Ollie” also missed out on any awards despite three nominations each.
As previously announced, BAFTAand Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker was honored with a BAFTA Fellowship, the body’s highest accolade, for her outstanding and exceptional contribution to the industry. Schoonmaker had previous won BAFTA awards for her editing on Martin Scorsese’s films “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas”. Scorsese was awarded the Fellowship in 2012. Schoonmaker’s late husband, British filmmaker Michael Powell, received the Fellowship in 1981.
Also previously announced, the special BAFTA award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema was presented to producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley of Number 9 Films (“Carol”, “The Crying Game”). Presenting the award actor Bill Nighy said the pair were “among the most successful and influential filmmakers in the world.”
Before coming on Lumley was seen in a video introduction featuring the host trying out outfits for the show, appearing in a number of costumes referencing nominated films including “The Favourite”, “Stan & Ollie”, “Mary Poppins Returns”, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “First Man”. The latter segued into a performance by acrobatic group Cirque de Soleil’s Totem in an interpretation of the moon landing which received a standing ovation from the celebrity audience.