A surprising BAFTA nomination list

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)...

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BIFA Nominations: "Saint Maud" leads the horror friendly pack

by Nathaniel R

The British Independent Film Awards have announced their nominations for the year. 27 films received at least one nomination but the bulk of the nominations went to Saint Maud (17), His House (16), and Rocks (15). UPDATE: Rocks and His House later emerged as the big winners. Higher profile Oscar hopefuls like The Father (6) and Ammonite (2) didn't do as well though The Father eventually won 3 of its 6 categories. Due to the category divisions BIFA has a lot of people that are double or triple nominated this year (they have the regular categories plus "debut" style categories). The BIFAs have a unique process in that the nominations are juried and then winners are decided in two separate ways. All BIFA vote by secret ballot to decide the winners of the nine craft categories plus Best Film, Best International Film, Discovery Award, and Short Film. But everything else is decided by discussion of individual juries separate from the juries who picked the nomination! Confusing right?! 

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH THE WINNERS 02/19/21

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