Following an outcry over the lack of diversity in last year's nominees and an overhaul of its rules and regulations, the EE British Film Academy Awards has unveiled a far more inclusive field of nominees, including record nods for female directors and a leading seven nominations for Chloe Zhao's Nomadland and Sarah Gavron's Rocks.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Much like previous Academy Awards controversies, last year's nominations by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts spawned a BaftasSoWhite hashtag online and was denounced for their all-male directing nominees and all-white acting nominees.
Director Steve McQueen said the BAFTAs risked irrelevancy.
After winning for his performance in Joker, Joaquin Phoenix said he felt "conflicted" even accepting the award.
The British academy responded with a seven-month review.
It expanded membership, mandated unconscious bias training for its 6700 voting members, grew the number of nominees in numerous categories and changed the nomination process to include a longlist phase.
Acting categories were selected in part through juries.
Watching all longlisted films was compulsory viewing.
And the longlisted directing field was divided equally between women and men.
The results on Tuesday made for a radically different BAFTAs.
The leading vote-getters were Zhao's drama about a middle-aged woman (Frances McDormand) who travels the American West while living out of her van and Gavron's coming-of-age tale about a Black British teenage girl (Bukky Bakray) in London.
Four of the six directing nominees are women, including Zhao, Gavron, Shannon Murphy (Babyteeth) and Jasmila Zbanic (Quo Vadis, Aida?).
Also nominated are Lee Isaac Chung for the family drama Minari and Thomas Vinterberg for the Danish dark comedy Another Round.
More films were nominated, too. A total of 50 films were nominated, up from 39 last year.
Amanda Berry, chief executive of BAFTA, said in a video interview that one of the most important parts of the academy's overhaul was getting members to watch more than just the most hyped movies.
Despite the pandemic, a total of 258 films were entered into this year's BAFTAs, which the academy said were watched more than 150,000 times through its online platform.
Australian Associated Press
