A surprising BAFTA nomination list
Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 11:39AM
NATHANIEL R in Alfre Woodard, BAFTA, His House, Rocks, Saint Maud, The Dig

by Nathaniel R

Nomadland and Rocks lead the nominations at the BAFTA Film Awards this year with 7 nominations each. The Father, Mank, Minari, and Promising Young Woman were right on their heels with 6 nominations each (though Mank and Minari both missed key top categories). After years of criticism over BAFTA's lack of diversity they made 120 rule changes (!) and, coupled with a strong year for films from and starring ethnic minorities or women, two thirds of the acting nominations went to people of color and the majority of the directing nominations went to women.

We've outlined the complex changes they made around the Best Director category (which created quite a surprising result) but in general it's easiest to think of what BAFTA did as adding what amounts to Oscar's International Feature "Executive Committee" to the longlist process in multiple categories to keep an eye on diversity and fix any glaring ommissions before the final nominations vote.

Oscar voters turn in their nomination ballots tomorrow (if they haven't already) so this won't be influential per se but it's still interesting. Especially since the nominations are so very different than what the Oscars will end up being (due to different eligibility lists and now different rules, too)...

FILM

This is a good get for The Father and no it wasn't a given. You can't always trust BAFTA to care about homegrown films, since they've been quite invested in being a "precursor" for the past decade plus. But this year they have looked inward more and more British films are peppered throughout the main categories. 

BRITISH FILM

40% percent of the nominees here are not eligible at the Oscars (due to lack of US distribution or no paperwork submitted). Calm with Horses, Limbo, Mogul Mowgli (starring Riz Ahmed) and Rocks can't be nominated at the parallel Oscars. Curiously Saint Maud which played US festivals in 2019 and was never released the following year in the US is eligible at the Oscars. Turns out it arrived on VOD very recently two calendar years after its festival bow in time for the extended eligibility period, so it's nominated for 2020. CONFUSING. It's stretched across three years of cinema  but that happens sometimes with the complexities of distribution for indies. 

LEAD ACTRESS


  • Bukky Bakray - Rocks
  • Radha Blank - The Forty-Year-Old Version
  • Vanessa Kirby - Pieces of a Woman
  • Frances McDormand - Nomadland
  • Wunmi Mosaku - His House
  • Alfre Woodard - Clemency

    •  

    BAFTA went their own way with Best Actress, nominating two women that aren't eligible at the Oscars (Bakray and Woodard) and one whose film has no profile in the states (Wunmi Mosaku of Lovecraft Country fame). It's a shocker to see Woodard nominated here a year after her failed Oscar bid. Usually when a film misses Oscar and isn't eligible for BAFTA at the same time they ignore it the next year. But we're happy since she was a nominee here last season and anything that gets BAFTA to focus on what the British year in cinema was like instead of what's happening across the ocean is great news. 

    The shocking omission here is Carey Mulligan since Promising Young Woman had six nominations.

    LEADING ACTOR

    Gourav follows up his surprise Spirit nomination with a BAFTA nomination and Rahim his surprise Globe nomination with a BAFTA nomination. We're thrilled to see Mads Mikkelsen honored since American critics and precursors have ignored him despite loving the film that rests so heavily on his gifts (he's on our ballot).

    Gary Oldman and Steven Yeun might have reasonably hoped to be here so that is a tough break for them.

    SUPPORTING ACTRESS


    Three of these women aren't eligible at Oscars (Algar, Ali, Madekwe) so among the potential Oscar contenders this is amazing news for Dominique Fishback (who we've long suspected was on the cusp of a surprise Oscar nom). Though Bakalova and Youn are, in some ways, not typical Oscar candidates at this point if they aren't named on the 15th it's going to count as a "snub" (the word is often overused but it would probably work in this circumstance). 

    Very surprising to see Olivia Colman missing, though, since they obviously loved The Father. And given Jodie Foster's Globe win AND The Mauritanian nabbing a Best Film nomination (when there are only 5 slots) it's also shocking that Foster wasn't nominated. 

    SUPPORTING ACTOR

    It's a shock (to put it mildly) to see Clarke Peters named for Da 5 Bloods when Delroy Lindo didn't make Best Actor and has hogged the lion's share of the accolades for that movie. But it's nice to see someone beyond Boseman recognized for that film since that honor always felt weirdly redundant and overly generous given that he's worthy in Ma Rainey and was obviously going to be justly rewarded for it.

    Still, at least half of this list is leading roles but what are you gonna do? We've long since lost that battle to reward supporting players in their own category. But anyway... YAY, Paul Raci! We're still worried Oscar won't come through but this is a good honor. 

    After Alan S Kim's nomination here and his Critics Choice Young Performer win back-to-back, it's tempting to think he has a shot at the Oscar nod. If he were a little girl he'd probably be a lock but Oscar voters are less welcoming to little boys, historically speaking.

    DIRECTOR


    A very different director lineup than we've been seeing which is wonderful. And four of the six nominees are women. But not the same women that keep getting honored in the US so that's a twist!  LOVE the Shannon Murphy mention but it's still shocking since her film wasn't nominated anywhere else. It's also quite bizarre (not that we're complaining -- he's on our own ballot)  to see Lee Isaac Chung nominated when Minari didn't make their finalist list for Best Film. 

    It's worth noting, though, that BAFTA really worked to insure this kind of a result would happen. The rule changes around Best Director were intricate. First the directing branch of BAFTA had to come up with an gender balanced list of 16 contenders. Then a separate special jury added four more directors, which also had to be gender balanced. Then a separate nominating jury voted on the 20 contenders to determine the six nominees. 

    men who made the long list but didn't land the nomination: Bahrani (White Tiger), Fincher (Mank), Greengrass (News of the World), MacDonald (Mauritanian), Nolan (Tenet), Sorkin (Chicago 7), Stone (The Dig), Zeller (The Father)

    women who made the long list but didn't land the nomination: Blank (40 Year Old Version), Fennell (Promising Young Woman), Glass (Saint Maud), Green (The Assistant), King (One Night in Miami)

    and... a male/female directing duo that didn't land the nomination: Ehrlich & Reed (My Octopus Teacher)

    EE RISING STAR AWARD


    This award is voted on by the public.

    DEBUT FROM BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR, OR PRODUCER

    FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE


    As with the Globes, Minari was shoved off to this category. At least here it makes more sense since these are British awards so it hardly matters that Minari is an all-American triumph since it's still not in English. The other major difference from the Globes is that Minari was actually eligible for the top category (Best Film) but just didn't make the long list...that's quite strange, really, when you consider how many nominations it did snag in  the end! Of these five international nominees only Another Round made the finalist list for Best Film though it didn't land the nomination.

    DOCUMENTARY

    Collective and My Octopus Teacher are finalists for the Oscar nomination in this category... though we don't expect both to land the nomination.

    ANIMATED FILM

    Only three nominees and it's the three most high profile films in the category. BAFTA didn't dig deep here since even on their "longlist" they listed only six titles (Over the Moon, Willoughbys, and Croods 2 also made the cut) and no films that weren't in English made the finals.

    ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY


    A very different list than we'll see at Oscar (which is always nice to say because there's no point in dozens of groups if they all agree!). Love the Another Round citation. 

    ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

    Another surprising list! 

    ORIGINAL SCORE

  • Mank - Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
  • Minari - Emile Mosseri
  • News of the World - James Newton Howard
  • Promising Young Woman - Anthony Willis
  • Soul - Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

    •  

    All of these except Promising Young Woman made the Oscar finals. We'll see if they can snag the nomination because there are several other biggies like Tenet, Chicago 7, and Da 5 Bloods as distinct possibilities, too

    CINEMATOGRAPHY


    Surprise! Judas (just discussed) and Mauritanian both show up. This year in particular, blame COVID-19, it paid to show up very very late in the eligibility period. Oscar's cinematography competition feels pretty wide open beyond Nomadland and Mank (which feel like the only sure things). With Minari, Tenet, News of the World, First Cow, Judas, I'm Thinking of Ending Things and more lying in wait.

    COSTUME DESIGN

    The Dig has to count as a surprise but we continue to be disappointed that so few awards group notice contemporary design. Would have been nice to see more mentions of Eurovision and Promising Young Woman this season.

    EDITING

    We're thrilled that the disorienting editing of The Father keps landing nominations and we hope to see it in the Oscar list, too. Sound of Metal is making a late surge in this category, too.

    PRODUCTION DESIGN


    They went a bit Netflix crazy here with three nominations, two of them unexpected (The Dig, Rebecca). We don't think Oscar's list will look like this given the abundant other possibilities like Tenet, Mulan, Emma, Ma Rainey, Midnight Sky, David Copperfield...

    MAKEUP AND HAIR

    BAFTA sure liked The Dig! It's the only one of these titles that is not eligible for the parallel Osar category since it didn't make the finals. 

    SOUND


    Nobody seems to like Greyhound so two nominations is pretty good!

    SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

    Of these only Greyhound did not make the Oscar finals for vfx.

    CASTING

    Oscar doesn't have this category so we enjoy seeing their nominees. We agree that Minari is a super choice though our own list looks very different (though we have different eligibility list since the majority of these weren't 2020 releases in the US)

    BRITISH SHORT FILM

    The Present is also eligible for the Oscar and we think it has a good shot. 

    BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION

    Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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