Sir Anthony tipped for an Oscar at 83
SIR Anthony Hopkins could be in line for another Oscar after getting the Best Actor gong at the British Independent Film Awards.
Silence Of The Lambs star Hopkins, 83, won the accolade for his part in Florian Zeller’s The Father, which also won Best Screenplay and Best Editing.
The film, in which Olivia Colman plays his daughter, is adapted from Zeller’s 2012 play Le Pere, and explores the relationship between an old man with dementia and his family.
Sir Anthony has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar five times but only won once – for his role as Hannibal Lecter in 1992.
Meanwhile coming-of-age drama Rocks claimed five awards at the delayed 2020 Bifa event on Thursday – including Best British Independent Film.
Sarah Gavron’s feature is about teenage girls in London.
Kosar Ali took home the awards for both Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer while her co-star D’Angelou Osei Kissiedu won
Best Supporting Actor. Lucy Pardee had already won Best Casting prize.
Psychological horror Saint Maud claimed Best Debut Director for Rose Glass and Best Cinematography for Ben Fordesman.
British horror film His House earned Remi Weekes the Best Director gong with Wunmi Mosaku winning Best Actress.
The Night Of actor Riz Ahmed was Best Debut Screenwriter for Mogul Mowgli, written by Bassam Tariq, which was also awarded Best Music.
Misbehaviour and The Reason I Jump also got two awards each. Breakthrough Producer trophy went to Irune Gurtubai for Limbo, a poignant look at the asylum experience on a remote Scottish island.
The online ceremony was hosted by Harry Potter star Tom Felton.
A STUDENT forced to study in a camper van while paying thousands for digs she cannot use says she feels like one of the pandemic’s “forgotten victims”.
Third-year Charlotte Ashley Higgins, 20, faces a £4,000 bill for the private accommodation she hasn’t been able to return to since leaving in December.
She has since been holed up in the van on the drive of the family home in Sutton Coldfield.
Charlotte – doing a degree criminology, criminal justice and law – admitted she needed “peace and quiet” away from her three younger siblings.
She said: “The house is a bit crazy. They’re homeschooled and I’m trying to do uni work.
“The van is somewhere I can go to get peace and quiet from the hustle and bustle.”
She admitted the worry about returning to her student place while at the University of Wolverhampton had taken a toll on her mental health.
The fear of not being safe there while still stumping up for it led to her taking four weeks off her parttime job while in a “quite bad in place”. Charlotte – who is backing the Daily Express Fair Deal for Students campaign for rent rebates, hardship funds and lower tuition fees – said: “I’ve tried to get out of my contract and end my tenancy. I don’t feel safe returning to the accommodation if the state it was in before December is anything to go by. I’m not going to put myself in that position again.
“I felt we were treated very, very unfairly and I just feel completely ignored.” Students have wasted nearly £1billion on accommodation they cannot use this academic year alone, according to a survey by the Save the Student! website. It works out at an average £1,621 a head.
But Charlotte believes lodgings providers have also been forgotten. She said: “I don’t think they have the support from the Government to provide students with what they need.
“Without support, they can’t give refunds – which is a really hard pill to swallow. As students we’ve seen the furlough scheme, Eat Out to Help Out and the intervention with exams like GCSEs and A Levels.
“But we haven’t seen anything being done for us apart from the cash injection which is going to hardship funds...which are basically impossible to access and qualify for.
“It’s been difficult being the forgotten victims of the pandemic.”
Another casualty is second-year criminology student Maya Cooper, 19, who admitted it has been “difficult”. Her family live in London
but she is studying at Liverpool John Moores. Maya – among the thousands who signed accommodation contracts believing in-person learning would partly resume – said: “Having to choose between home or being at university without family has been really hard.
“Also being home and having to try and help my mum financially – but also be tied to a flat that I’m not living in has been really, really difficult.
“I’m still expected to pay at least £1,500 every few months. My accommodation [bosses] told me I should travel back despite the Government urging us to stay as my course is not ‘essential’.”