Make the Baftas a truly British celebration of film
Here is a clue that something might be amiss in Bafta-land: one of the most British films of the year is not in contention for Outstanding British Film. I’m talking about Dunkirk: commercially fruitful and critically celebrated worldwide, and uncompromisingly British to its core. It recreates a historical event instrumental in shaping our national character. It features tea, jam sandwiches and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. It was directed by Christopher Nolan, one of our greatest living filmmakers. Most of the action scenes involve queues, for goodness sake.
Yet in this year’s UK-only Bafta categories, Dunkirk is nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t that the qualifying test for Britishness held it back. No: Dunkirk was not nominated in the category because the filmmakers didn’t enter it in the first place. For them, it was Best Film or bust.
Presenting separate awards to films from here and there has been the Bafta way since 1947. But in 2002, when the ceremony relocated from April to February – landing slap-bang in the middle of the annual Academy Awards trail – its new self-conferred role as one of the big Oscar night precursors turned its Britain-only section into something of a sideshow. In that context, the Outstanding British Film award takes on the glint of a consolation prize, for the plucky local contender who couldn’t quite go the full 12 rounds with the Hollywood heavyweights.
Any self-respecting film industry owes it to itself to properly celebrate its best and brightest work. Yet I wouldn’t for a moment want the Baftas to take their cue from the French Césars and only recognise 100 per cent domestic produce. Our business is very different: it’s far more diverse and diffuse, encompassing not just the obviously British productions, but also the countless artists and technicians crafting blockbusters at studios like Shepperton and Pinewood, and the international filmmakers lured here by our crews, effects houses, landscapes and tax breaks. In other words, it’s not a cultural ghetto, and fencing it off like one no longer makes much sense. So as the Baftas refresh their host for their 71st edition (goodbye Stephen Fry, hello Joanna Lumley), here is a modest proposal to consider in time for the 75th. Bin the Britain-only categories, but retain the requirement for British creative involvement – albeit reduced from significant to, say, meaningful – and then apply it across the board. Rather than being a dry run for the Academy Awards with a soggier red carpet, let the Baftas specifically recognise great filmmaking from around the world – Oscar hopefuls and otherwise – made possible by British talent. Deciding who’s in and out might prove a diplomatic minefield.
But Bafta could always draw inspiration from the BFI’s’s own finely tuned points-based test – used to calculate eligibility for UK tax relief – which weighs film settings and subjects as well as the nationalities of their directors, crews and casts.
Bonus one: the prospect of a pre-Oscars profile boost would be yet another reason to make films in Britain, fostering further investment that could be ploughed back into an indie sector sorely in need of it.
Bonus two: cinemagoers might finally appreciate the breadth and depth of our filmmaking talent, rather than bridling in bewilderment when films like Gravity or, this year, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri turn up in British categories.
You wouldn’t necessarily guess that either of those films was home-grown, but both pass the BFI and Bafta tests. Billboards is a Film4 co-production, written and directed by London-born Martin McDonagh. And Gravity was directed by London-based Alfonso Cuarón, produced by David “Harry Potter” Heyman, shot at Shepperton by a British crew, and features visual wizardry overseen by the British effects house Framestore.
These are just two of the 12 films to have been nominated for both Outstanding British Film and Best Film in the last decade: Gravity won in the former category in 2014, and I suspect Billboards might follow suit this evening, if it doesn’t clinch Best Film outright. But this bestriding of the categories only reinforces the image of our national cinema as a training pool, rather than a thread running through the entirety of the art form. Scrub out the distinction and the result would be a sparkier, less predictable awards show, with a more diverse spread of contenders, and which does a better job of recognising British filmmaking excellence wherever it’s found. The EE British Academy Film Awards is broadcast on BBC One at 9pm tonight
‘It’s not a cultural ghetto, and fencing it off like one no longer makes much sense’