The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Bafta awards will go to actresses, actors and ‘performers’
Winners across the acting categories can decide whether their prize carries the new designation
A SWARM of tiny spacecraft could travel through interstellar space to reach our closest star beyond the Sun, under plans being funded by Nasa.
Florida-based Space Initiatives is proposing sending thousands of miniature probes to Proxima B, a potentially habitable planet in the Proxima Centauri star system, which is nearly 4.3 light
BAFTA will allow “actor” and “actress” titles to be swapped for “performer” at this season’s awards.
The new designations came as the film academy released its highly anticipated longlist.
All nominees and winners across the four acting categories can ask for their certificate and mask plaques to instead read “performer”, according to accompanying guidelines published yesterday. However, proposals to create gender-neutral categories for acting remain under consideration.
A document outlining the rules and guidelines for this year’s awards reads: “Nominees and/or winners in any of the four performance categories can request via email ... that their certificate and Bafta mask plaque be revised to carry the term Performer rather than Actor or Actress.”
directed by Greta Gerwig, has emerged as this year’s frontrunner alongside Christopher Nolan’s and Martin Scorsese’s
achieving 15 nominations each.
The trio are vying for the prize of Best Film alongside
a science fantasy black comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, which earned 14.
Also in the category is
the biopic of the conductor Leonard Bernstein, starring Bradley Cooper, which gained 12.Andrew Haigh’s ghostly romance follows with 10, as does Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz drama,
a French courtroom drama, secured seven along with a Christmas drama featuring Paul Giamatti.
The final contender for best film is
the debut film from director Celine Song.
Only one British actor features in years (or 25 trillion miles) from Earth. With current technology, it would take around 30,000 years to reach the system, but scientists believe the nanocraft could be fitted with tiny sails and pushed by laser beams.
Prof Stephen Hawking proposed a similar idea before his death, suggesting that a 100 gigawatt beam of light could accelerate the craft to speeds of 100 million miles per hour. It would cut the journey time to about 20 years, and once there, the swarm could sweep over Proxima B, looking for signs of alien life, or even civilisations.
The idea has been picked for funding by Nasa’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programme, which fosters pioneering ideas, and in the past has led to developments like the Ingenuity helicopter, currently being flown on Mars.
Thomas Eubanks, of Space Initiatives, the leading actor category, with George Mackay in about a drag artist seeking revenge after a vicious homophobic assault. Meanwhile, three Irish actors – Andrew Scott, Barry Keoghan and Cillian Murphy – will go up against American heavyweights Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper.
In the leading actress category, Margot Robbie will compete against previous winners Carey Mulligan and Annette Bening.
There are three British actors nominated in the supporting actor category: Anthony Hopkins, Ben Whishaw and Jamie Bell.
English actress Naomi Ackie and
star Kingsley Ben-Adir will announce the Bafta nominations via livestream on Thursday January 18 at midday. The nominations for the EE rising star award, the only Bafta where the winner is selected by the public, will be announced on Wednesday.
The winners will be revealed on Feb 18 at the Royal Festival Hall in London in a ceremony hosted by David Tennant, the actor.
Anna Higgs, the Bafta film committee head, said: “The publication of the EE Bafta film awards longlists is one our favourite dates in the awards season calendar. It’s a moment that inspires film fans around the world to watch more movies and join in the conversation about who should be nominated.
“Today we are shining a light on 69 incredible films that Bafta voters have the difficult task of whittling down to the final nominees list.
“I encourage everyone to go see these films and make their own minds up. Huge congratulations to those longlisted today, it’s an extraordinary achievement and a testament to the phenomenal talent in our industry.” Tenant, 52, said: “I am delighted to have been asked to host the EE Bafta film awards and help celebrate the very best of this year’s films.”
said: “Tiny gram-scale interstellar probes pushed by laser light are likely to be the only technology capable of reaching another star this century.
“We presuppose availability by mid-century of a laser beamer powerful enough to boost a few grams to relativistic speed, lasersails robust enough to survive launch, and terrestrial light buckets big enough to catch our optical signals. Then our proposed mission is to fly by our nearest neighbour, the potentially habitable world Proxima B, with a swarm of thousands of tiny probes.”
Although Voyager One has ventured outside the Solar System and is in interstellar space, no spaceship has ever reached another star system. Even if the swarm reached Proxima B and found signs of life, it would take at least eight years for a signal to return to Earth.
The team hopes to begin testing swarms of laser-powered nanobots closer to home, such as around the Moon and in the Solar System.
Other projects selected for funding are an electric plane that could take off and land on Mars, a sample return mission to Venus using a solar aircraft, and a study of hibernating animals on board the International Space Station to see if astronauts could be placed in torpor for long journeys without health problems.