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nations and regions
Bafta LA
Winter, also known as The Awards Season, is a par- ticularly busy time of year at BAFTA/LA. Members can attend screenings at all the stu- dios or see the films at public the- atres courtesy of their member- ship cards. BAFTA/LA also hosts its own weekly screenings, many with Q&A’s. There is no excuse for members not seeing the films eli- gible for nominations for the Orange BAFTA Film Awards.
January screenings include Black Hawk Down (Q&A with Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer), Ali (Q&A with Michael Mann), L.I.E. (Q&A with Brian Cox), Amelie (Q&A with Jean-Pierre Jeunet), Shrek (with a hands-on demonstration of voice-over technology, Last Orders, The Shipping News (Q&A with Lasse Hallstrom), In the Bedroom (Q&A with Todd Field), and Enigma (Q&A with Michael Apted).
This hectic screenings schedule is a result of moving the Orange BAFTA Film Awards forward on the calendar prior to the American Academy Awards. This year, to cel- ebrate the growing success of the Awards, BAFTA/LA is hosting a pri- vate satellite feed of the live BBC broadcast for its members on February 24. The luncheon will be held at The Four Seasons Hotel at Beverly Hills, and of course any BAFTA members visiting LA will be welcome to attend.
The Awards Season kicked off with The Golden Globes on January 20. The day before, BAFTA/LA jointly hosted, with LA Councilwoman Jan Perry, an evening with Sir Ian McKellen reading from The Lord Of The Rings at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Among the guests were students from Hobart Elementary School and John Adams Middle School.
Amidst the voting for the BAFTA Film Awards, BAFTA/LA members were also electing members to serve two-year terms on the Board of Directors. Those elected were due to be intro- duced to the membership at the Annual General Meeting on January 30, and will join returning Directors Jane Ayer, Tim Burkinshaw, David Campling, Pamela Godfrey, Katy Haber, Peter Henton, Hilary Mackendrick, and Wil Males.
We are pleased that many of our talented members are willing to serve and have come forward as candidates. Citing lessons learned from the presidential vot- ing system, BAFTA/LA has decid- ed not to use butterfly ballots in the election process (no offence to our friends in Florida)!
2002 is off to a fast start. Looking a little further toward the future, the new date for the 11th Britannia Awards honouring George Lucas with the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film and HBO Original Programming with the Britannia Award for Excellence in Television is confirmed for Friday, April 12.
We anticipate great things in the year to come and look for- ward to continued progress on the BAFTA/LA Heritage Archive preservation interviews with British filmmakers and continued cele- bration of British filmmaking in America.
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One of the first really big films to kick off the season was, of course, Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. Such anticipa-
tion. Host Warner Bros. had given us enough space to allow BAFTA members to bring their children and Jim Dale, the voice on the Harry Potter audio tapes, was there to generously hand out tapes to the kids.
The screening took place in advance of the film opening and it was packed. A few weeks later it was the same story with The Lord of the Rings, where New Line Cinema, our host, had to move the BAFTA event to a much larger screening facility. At the latter, we were extremely pleased to have Sir Ian McKellen join the event and talk to members about the making of the film and his role as the wizard Gandalf.
Another film that generated a lot of interest from our members was Last Orders. Courtesy of Sony Classics, this appealing film
based on Graham Swift’s novel of the same name, included a Q&A with director Fred Schepisi.
In terms of talent, we were also thrilled to have Dame Judi Dench, Sir Richard Eyre, James Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville available to talk after the screening of their very moving film Iris. Dame Judi continues to be one of the best- known and best-loved of British actors on this side of the pond.
One Sunday afternoon in early December, Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer joined us for the screening and a discussion about their new film Black Hawk Down. Tilda Swinton was a big hit at the screening of The Deep End and Halle Berry and Marc Forster pro- vided many insights into the mak- ing of Monsters Ball, a Liongate film. Director Todd Field was joined by his cast members Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei and Tom Wilkinson for Miramax’s screening of In the Bedroom. We have also had screenings of The Royal Tenenbaums, The Shipping News, Ali and more.
If that wasn’t enough, the stu- dios were sending out cassettes of many of the films to members and putting on additional screen-
ings. BAFTA membership is the hottest membership to have this year and we have enjoyed the voting process.
Of course, Christmas would not be complete without the BAFTA Christmas Party, held at the Consul General’s beautiful residence on East 66th Street. It was such fun this year. British Consul Tom Harris and his wife Mei-Ling were the perfect hosts and we had a pianist whose last recital had been at the Savoy! We also used the occasion to honour our long-serving Trustee Don Taffner who was recently made an OBE.
BAFTA Cymru
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(Byw yn dy Groen) as part of the International Film Festival a film produced by BODA for S4C; FilmFour’s Charlotte Gray at the UGC Cinema Cardiff followed by a Q and A session with Douglas Rae its producer; and Eldra, Teliesyn’s new film for S4C at Theatr Gwynedd in Bangor.
Later on in the month at the UGC Cinema Cardiff, a packed house was entertained to a spe- cial tribute evening for David Meredith. His lifelong friend John Hefin (former Head of Drama at BBC Wales and Director of Ffilm Cymru) did a ‘Parkinson’ and quizzed Meredith on his career as a freelance broadcaster and presenter and as Head of Publicity at HTV and S4C.
The world renowned artist Kyffin Williams was amongst those who provided a special film trib- ute to this remarkable man who served the television and film industry with such distinction and at the end of the evening Bryn Roberts, the Chair of BAFTA Cymru, presented David Meredith with a special award ‘Cymrawd’ for his achievements.
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TAFTA East Coast
he BAFTA East Coast chapter was busier last Autumn than at any time in its history. The number of screenings and events increased substantially and thank heavens that everyone (almost!) is contactable by email as these invitations were going out thick and fast and couldn’t wait for snail mail.
Photos (l-r): Eleanor Taffner, Jim Dale, Mei-Ling Harris and Don Taffner at the BAFTA East Coast Christmas party held at the British Consul General’s residence; Lee Daniels, Marc Forster, Christina Thomas and Halle Berry at the BAFTA LA screening of Monsters Ball Photos: Aubrey Reuben; Bafta Cymru Q&A Photo: Huw John
AFTA Cymru ended the year with three screenings in
December: Cross Current