Stars shine at BAFTA

Written by: JILL LAWLESS (Associated Press)

LONDON (AP) — The atomic bomb epic “Oppenheimer” won seven awards at the 77th British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, including best picture, director and actor. Gothic fantasy “Poor Things” received five awards.

Christopher Nolan was named best director for “Oppenheimer,” and Cillian Murphy won best actor for his role as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Emma Stone was named best actress for “Poor Things,” which also won several craft and design awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars.

“Oppenheimer” was nominated 13 times but missed the record of nine trophies set by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” a half-century ago.

“Poor Things” won the best picture race with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers.”

“Oppenheimer” also won awards for editing, cinematography and music, as well as a best supporting actor award for Robert Downey Jr.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph was named best supporting actress for her portrayal of 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 an awards season considered a vintage year for cinema, buoyed by the end of actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for months.

Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” – a British film shot in Poland with a largely German cast – was named both best British film and best non-English language film, a first.

Jonathan Glazer’s disturbing drama is set in a family home just outside the walls of Auschwitz.

Producer James Wilson said, “Walls are not new, before or after the Holocaust, and right now it seems certain that we should care about the killing of innocent people whether in Gaza, Yemen, Mariupol or Israel.” “Thank you for recognizing a film that invites us to think in these areas.”

The historical epic “The Killers of the Flower Bear” was nominated nine times for the awards, officially called the EE BAFTA Film Awards, but went home empty-handed.

Hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant, who takes to the stage wearing a skirt and sequined top while carrying a dog named Bark Ruffalo, the ceremony is a flashy, British-accented appetizer for Hollywood’s Academy Awards and is closely watched for clues about who might win. At the Oscars on March 10.

The Original Screenplay Award went to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” The film, about a woman on trial for the death of her husband, was written by director Justine Triet and her partner Arthur Harari.

“It’s fiction and we’re doing pretty well,” Triet joked.

Cord Jefferson won the adapted screenplay award for his satirical “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American novelist.

Jefferson said he hopes the film’s success will “perhaps change the minds of the people who greenlight movies and TV shows, allowing them to be less risk averse.”

The Ukrainian war documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” produced by The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” won the award for best documentary.

“This is not about us,” said filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who captured the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city with an AP crew. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”

The story of the city and its fall to Russian occupation “is a symbol of struggle and faith,” Chernov said. Thank you for amplifying our voices and let’s keep fighting.”

Other top award nominees included “The Holdovers” and the Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” with seven nominations each, and the grief-stricken love story “We Are All Strangers” with six nominations each. The thorny class-war drama “Saltburn” was nominated for five but won nothing.

The year’s highest-grossing movie, “Barbie”, which makes up half of 2023’s blockbuster “Barbenheimer”, also came up empty-handed among five nominations.

“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig received neither a BAFTA nor an Oscar directing nomination, which was seen by many as a major snub.

Britain’s film academy has made changes to increase awards diversity in 2020, which saw no women nominated for best director for the seventh consecutive year and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting actor categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among this year’s top six director nominees.

Before the ceremony, nominees including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri walked the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall alongside presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett and David Beckham. .

The guest of honor was Prince William, President of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife, Kate, who is recovering from abdominal surgery last month.

The ceremony included “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham singing “Time After Time” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor singing her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which rose back into the charts after appearing on “Saltburn.” ”

Actress Samantha Morton received the BAFTA Scholarship, the academy’s highest award, and June Givanni Film curator June Givanni, founder of the PanAfrican Cinema Archive, was honored for her outstanding British contribution to cinema.

Sunday’s ceremony was being broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 7pm and on streaming service BritBox in the US, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

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Hilary Fox contributed to this story.