All Quiet on the Western Front is back in the game for the Oscars on 12 March having won today as best film at the Baftas, the British cinema awards considered among the precursors of the Academy Awards. Edward Berger’s film about the trenches of World War I won seven statuettes, more than any other rival production, out of a total of 14 nominations: best film, best director, best film not in English, adapted screenplay, cinematography, soundtrack and sound effects. Elvis’ Austin Butler and Tar’s Cate Blanchett emerged as the best actors of 2022 according to the British Film and Television Academy awards judging panel announced at the Royal Festival Hall on the evening hosted by Richard Grant.
Snubbed with the exception of a minor prize for editing, Everything Everywhere All At Once, in contrast with the tastes of the Academy Awards jurors who in January had given the film by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (the Daniels) a record eleven nominations. The Daniels won the Directors Guild of America’s directing award yesterday by putting their hat on at least that statuette: only eight times in the DGA’s 75-year history has the winner been snubbed at the Academy Awards. Nothing New arrives at the Oscars on March 12 with nine nominations, on a par with Spirits of the Island which had ten nominations at the BAFTAs but won in only four categories on a par with Elvis. Irish director Martin McDonagh’s film was awarded for supporting actors (Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan), for original screenplay and for best British film although, as the British-Irish McDonagh pointed out from the stage, it was a very Irish film “even if the little donkey is from Stoke on Kent, and therefore qualifies”.
Condon’s victory for best supporting actress for The Spirits of the Island went ‘lost in translation’ for a few seconds: the interpreter of Bafta did not understand the name that the deaf-mute actor Tony Kotsur had announced in sign language and he then reported that the honoree was Carey Mulligan. Both Kotsur and the translator immediately ran for cover and the statuette was delivered before Mulligan, candidate for her docudrama She Said, had had time to get up from her chair to go on stage. The award for best animated film went to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, the one for best documentary to Navalny, with a controversial ending because a key collaborator on the film about the poisoning of Vladimir Putin’s great rival, the Bulgarian journalist Christo Grezov, was disinvited at the last minute for security reasons. Prince William and his wife Kate had returned to Bafta for the first time after a two-year absence, she was very elegant in a white Alexander McQueen dress perhaps recycled from a previous ceremony and accessorized with frugal Zara earrings. On the input of Blanchett, UN Goodwill Ambassador, many stars had pinned the blue pin of UNHCR’s #WithRefugees campaign on the dress: “I put it thinking of the victims of the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey”, said Paul Mescal, nominated for Aftersun which earned director Charlotte Wells the award for first film.
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