Christopher Nolan, winner of the director and best film awards for “Oppenheimer” (Portal/Hollie Adams)
The atomic epic “Oppenheimer” won seven awardsincluding Best Film, Best Director and Best Actorin the 77th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) This Sunday she consolidates her favorite status for the Oscar of the next month.
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Gothic fantasy “Poor things” (“Poor creatures”) took five awards and the drama about the Holocaust “The Interest Zone” (“Zone of Interest”) won three.
Christopher Nolan took his first BAFTA for best director by “Oppenheimer” and Cillian Murphy won best actor for the portrayal of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimerthe father of the atomic bomb.
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Murphy said he was grateful to portray such a “colossally” complex character.
Emma Stone called himself best actress to breathe life into the wilderness and energy Bella Baxter in “Poor Things”a steampunk-style visual spectacle that won awards for visual effects, production design, costume design, and makeup and hair.
Emma Stone poses in the winners' room with her lead actress award for “Poor Things” (Portal/Hollie Adams)
“Oppenheimer” had 13 nominations but failed to break the record of nine trophies set in 1971 “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (“Two Men and One Fate”).
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It won the race for Best Film “Poor Things”, “Killers of the Flower Moon” (“The Moon Killers”), “Anatomy of a Shot” (“Anatomy of a fall”) and “The Leftovers” (“Those who remain”). “Oppenheimer” also won trophies for editing, cinematography and original music, as well as the award for best supporting actor Robert Downey Jr.
Da'Vine Joy Randolph She won best supporting actress for her role as a boarding school cook in “The Holdovers” and said she feels a “responsibility that I don't take lightly” to tell the stories of underrepresented people like her character Mary.
“Oppenheimer” faced stiff competition in what was widely considered a banner year for film and an awards season energized by the end of the actors and writers strike that paralyzed Hollywood for months.
Cillian Murphy, winner of the best actor award for “Oppenheimer” (Photo Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
The title was The Zone of Interest, a British-produced film shot in Poland with a predominantly German cast Best British Film and Best Foreign Language Filma combination that appeared for the first time and also took home the award for best sound was described as the real star of the film.
Jonathan Glazer's disturbing drama takes place in a family's home next to the walls of the extermination camp. Auschwitzwhose horrors are heard and hinted at rather than seen.
“The walls are new neither before nor after the Holocaust, and it seems clear at this moment that we should be concerned about the deaths of innocent people in Gaza, Yemen, Mariupol or Israel,” the producer said James Wilson. “Thank you for honoring a film that challenges us to think about these spaces.”
The film about the Ukrainian war “20 days in Mariupol” (“20 Days in Mariupol”), produced by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline,” won the award for best documentary.
“This isn’t about us,” the filmmaker said Mstyslav Chernov, who worked with an AP team to capture the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”
Director Mstyslav Chernov and producers Raney Aronson Rath and Michelle Mizner (Portal/Hollie Adams)
Chernov said the city's history and its fall into Russian occupation was “a symbol of struggle and a symbol of faith.” Thank you for strengthening our voice and let’s keep fighting.”
The awards ceremony, hosted by the “Doctor Who” star David Tennantwho arrived on stage in a Scottish tartan and sequined blouse while holding a dog named Bark Ruffalo, was a dazzling preview of the Oscars in Hollywood with a British accent. The BAFTAs are being watched closely for clues about who might win at the Oscars On the 10th of March.
The award for best original screenplay went to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Shot”. The film about a woman on trial for her husband's death was written by the director Justine Triet and her partner Arthur Harari.
“It’s fiction, and we’re doing reasonably well,” Triet joked.
Cord Jefferson won best adapted screenplay for satire “American Fiction”about the struggles of an African American writer
Kingsley Ben-Adir, from left, Cord Jefferson, winner of the best adapted screenplay award for “American Fiction,” and Bryce Dallas Howard (Photo Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Jefferson said he hopes the film's success will “maybe change the minds of the people who are responsible for releasing films and television shows and allow them to be less risk-averse.”
The historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” had nine nominations for the film awards, officially called the EE BAFTAs, but came away empty-handed.
There were also snubs for the biopic about it Conductor Leonard Bernstein “Maestro”, which had seven nominations but won no awards. The painful love story “All of Us Strangers” with six nominations and the class struggle comedy “Saltburn” with five nominations were also not included.
“Barbie”half summer encounter (boreal) “Barbenheimer” of 2023 and also the highest-grossing film of the year went home empty-handed after receiving five nominations. The director of “Barbie” Greta Gerwigreceived no nominations for directing at either the BAFTAs or the Oscars, which was seen by many as a major snub.
The British Film Academy introduced changes to increase awards diversity in 2020, when no woman was nominated for the best director category for the seventh year in a row and all 20 nominees in the acting categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among the six best director nominees that year.
David Beckham poses upon arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) in London (Photo Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
The emerging actor award, the only category decided by a public vote, went up Mia McKenna-BruceStar of How to Have Sex
Before the ceremony, the nominees were announced, including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo EdebiriTogether with the presenters she walked the red carpet at the Royal Festival Hall in London Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett, Idir Elba and David Beckham.
The guest of honor was Prince Williamin his role as President of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife, Kate Middletonwho recovers from one Abdominal surgery they did that last month.
The ceremony included musical performances from the star of “Ted Lasso” Hannah Waddinghamwho sang Time After Time, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who performed her 2001 hit Murder on the Dancefloor, which returned to the charts following its appearance on Saltburn.
Prince William chats to EE Rising Star Award winner Mia McKenna-Bruce, along with nominees Phoebe Dynevor, Ayo Edebiri and Sophie Wilde (Portal)
Film curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni Pan-African Film Archive, was honored for her outstanding British contribution to cinema, while actress Samantha Morton received the Academy's highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.
Morton, who grew up in nursing homes and children's institutions, said that “representation matters.”
“The stories we tell have the power to change people’s lives,” he said. “Cinema changed my life, changed me and brought me here.
“I dedicate this award to all children in care or care who did not survive.”
(With information from AP)