Page 18 - 20_Bafta Academy_Catherine Zeta-Jones_ok

film awards
united nations
A truly international flavour distinguished this year’s Orange British Academy Film Award winners. Quentin Falk reports.
2
3
1
16
Loosen your seatbelts,” said Stephen Fry, “it’s going to be a bumpless night.” Compared with the relentless rain and foaming fire retardent of the previous year, he was right.
But not even the affable host, on his third tour of duty, could have possibly guessed at the extent of the remarkable global sweep of winners revealed at this year’s Orange British Film Academy Awards.
The Academy has always made a proud point of promot- ing “international excellence in filmmaking” and the winners’ podium proved a veritable unit- ed nations of talent back and front of camera.
France, Britain, the US, India, New Zealand, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Australia could all claim triumphs on a mild winter night in Leicester Square when the crowds turned out in their thou- sands and a galaxy of stars were on hand to turn their buzz into an enthusiastic roar of appreciation.
Inside the Odeon, Fry remarked wittily how he loved “the smell of lip-balm in the evening” and so the scene was suitably set for a Sunday night show which, when transmitted
later on BBC1, drew nearly six mil- lion viewers. Those numbers and, perhaps more importantly, the audience share – peaking at 29 per cent – were significantly up on last year.
Considering the domination of the nominations by a distin- guished quintet of films – Chicago, Gangs Of New York, The Hours, The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers and, to a lesser extent, The Pianist – the only thing predictable about the awards was their utter unpredictability.
With nothing remotely resem- bling a clean sweep, the main prizes were shared almost equally among this famous five, with Roman Polanski’s The Pianist scor- ing the most prestigious brace, for Best Film and Best Director, while actresses Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta-Jones, respective- ly, also helped The Hours and Chicago earn two apiece.
Back on screen for the first time in five years, Daniel Day-Lewis’s Best Actor achievement for Gangs Of New York was, along with his modest and generous accept- ance speech, rightly acclaimed by the glittering full house.
As well as winning a pair of BAFTAs, the second spectacular
helping of Tolkien also repeated its 12-month-ago distinction of being named Orange Film Of The Year.
There were other double win- ners too. Pedro Almodovar won Best Foreign Language Film and Original Screenplay for Talk To Her (Hable con Ella) while Road To Perdition scored for Production Design and Cinematography, the latter earning a third, and sadly posthumous, BAFTA honour for the late, great Conrad L Hall ASC who died in January.
Rather more unexpected – and he still seemed to be pinch- ing himself hours after the cere- mony – were the two awards to Hackney-born Asif Kapadia, bare- ly out of his twenties, for his first film, The Warrior. It won both the Alexander Korda Award and the Carl Foreman Award, the latter carrying a £10,000 cash bonus.
Kapadia is just starting out on his career. First assistant director David Tomblin and second assis- tant Michael Stevenson have, veterans both, worked on more than 100 films between them and were joint winners of the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Film follow- ing in the great ‘unsung’ tradition of the category.
4