UPDATE: Nomadland walked off with the lion’s share of prizes at tonight’s EE British Academy Film Awards, taking Best Film, Director, Actress and Cinematography. The Chloé Zhao-helmed Searchlight picture thus adds to its awards season momentum, and makes Zhao only the second woman ever to win BAFTA’s directing prize, a day after she achieved the same feat at the DGAs.
On accepting Best Director, Zhao commented the honor would “make my teacher at Brighton College very proud.” When she won Best Film, she dedicated the award to “the nomadic community who so generously welcomed us into their lives. They shared with us their dreams their struggles and their deep sense of dignity. Thanks for showing us that aging is a beautiful part of life, a journey that we should all cherish and celebrate. How we treat our elders says a lot about who we are as a society and we need to do better.”
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Leading Actress winner Frances McDormand was not in virtual attendance, but sent a message, transmitted by presenter Richard E Grant: “Thank you dear British people. I humbly accept this prize on behalf of the Nomadland tribe. I salute you. Long may we roll.”
The show overall was a mix of in-person presenters from London and LA, and with all winners appearing virtually.
Further highlights included Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round winning the prize for Film Not In The English Language. Dressed in a tux and surrounded by colleagues and family in Copenhagen, Vinterberg piped in, “I did have a small suspicion you Brits might like a movie about drinking.” He also thanked his daughter Ida, a passionate supporter of the project who tragically passed away early in the film’s shoot, and noted, “The honor branded by you BAFTA voters means more to us than you can ever imagine.”
In other highlights, the recent passing of BAFTA’s first president, the Duke of Edinburgh, was noted a number of times, including at the outset of the show and by by Minari Best Supporting Actress winner Yuh-jung Youn whose acceptance speech light-heartedly poked fun at Brits for being “known as snobbish.”
Ang Lee was also on hand to accept the BAFTA Fellowship, the org’s highest honor, and noted from afar that he especially appreciated the love from the group since Britain “was the only market where The Ice Storm made any money.” Britain had also provided a “second film school” for the Sense And Sensibility director because at the time he “could only communicate in very short sentences; the comments I gave the actors were very concise, direct and honest. The cast was competing to see who would get the most rude remark from me. But my British colleagues were super patient and kind to me. I owe so much to them because after Sense And Sensibility I dared to venture into many other types of movies. They gave me courage to expand my horizons, to open my heart. To me that is what filmmaking is about: The courage to open ourselves to truth through story through sight and sound reflected on that silver screen. That’s how I connected with the world, that’s what I love doing. Receiving this award feels like recognition by people who connect in the same way.”
See below the original post for the full list of tonight’s BAFTA Awards winners.
PREVIOUS: The second part of the EE British Academy Film Awards is taking place from London’s Royal Albert Hall this evening, with all nominees appearing virtually. This follows Saturday’s BAFTA ceremony which delivered prizes in eight craft categories. Tonight’s show will unveil winners in 17 other fields while Ang Lee will accept the BAFTA Fellowship, the org’s highest honor. We’ll be updating the list below as winners are announced.
Hosts Edith Bowman and Dermot O’Leary are emceeing the show from the Royal Albert Hall and are being joined by a small group of presenters in person including Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cynthia Erivo, Hugh Grant, Richard E Grant, Tom Hiddleston, Felicity Jones, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, James McAvoy, David Oyelowo, Pedro Pascal and Jonathan Pryce. Others are appearing from Los Angeles including Rose Byrne, Andra Day, Anna Kendrick and Renée Zellweger.
Coming into the weekend, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland and Sarah Gavron’s Rocks led the nominations at seven each (Rocks on Saturday picked up the Casting Award). Nomadland tonight is up for Best Film, alongside The Father, The Mauritanian, Promising Young Woman and The Trial Of The Chicago 7. Of those, The Father and Promising Young Woman have six nominations each. Mank (a winner for Production Design last night) and Minari also scored six apiece. The Dig and The Mauritanian garnered mentions in five fields.
A notable takeaway this year has been the diversity of nominations. In a first for BAFTA, four women landed in the director category, and after all-white acting nominees last year, 16 of the 24 actors featured are from under-represented groups. There are also a number of newcomers in the bunch.
Prince William, who is president of BAFTA, was due to appear virtually this evening to deliver a speech celebrating the resilience of the film industry across the last year. However he has since been forced to cancel following the death on Friday of his grandfather, Prince Philip.
Check back for the list of winners as they are updated below:
BEST FILM
Nomadland; Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Chloé Zhao
LEADING ACTRESS
Frances McDormand; Nomadland
LEADING ACTOR
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
DIRECTOR
Chloé Zhao; Nomadland
EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
Bukky Bakray
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
Promising Young Woman; Emerald Fennell, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Josey McNamara
ORIGINAL SCORE
Soul; Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
DOCUMENTARY
My Octopus Teacher; Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed, Craig Foster
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
His House; Remi Weekes (Writer/Director)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Daniel Kaluuya; Judas And The Black Messiah
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Promising Young Woman; Emerald Fennell
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Yuh-Jung Youn; Minari
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Nomadland; Joshua James Richards
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Another Round; Thomas Vinterberg, Sisse Graum Jørgensen
EDITING
Sound Of Metal; Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Father; Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller
ANIMATED FILM
Soul; Pete Docter, Dana Murray