BAFTA’s Quirky Voting System Delivers Surprises
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic Three years ago, in an awards season narrowed and clouded by the global pandemic, the BAFTA awards acted as an unprecedentedly accurate Oscar bellwether, matching the U.S.
Academy’s eventual selections in all but one of 19 feature-film categories — from “Nomadland’s” best film victory to acting wins for Anthony Hopkins and Frances McDormand. (In the one exception, David Fincher’s “Mank” eventually trumped BAFTA winner “Nomadland” for best cinematography.) If awards pundits welcomed the foresight, others — particularly within the British industry — wondered if the U.K.’s most prestigious film awards had aligned a little too closely with their transatlantic equivalent.
Ever since the BAFTAs shifted their place in the calendar to precede the Academy Awards back in 2001, the tension between anticipating the Oscars and asserting their own identity has been a constant one.
Oscar-precursor status has earned the BAFTAs a massive jump in public awareness and media coverage, but at what cost to their individuality, and to local industry representation?
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