Page 12 - 01_Bafta ACADEMY_Lara Croft_ok

Bafta Beyond Piccadilly
FARFROMTHE
FARFROMTHE
FROM OVER THERE
BAFTA CYMRU
BAFTA LA has made an exciting start to 2000 after no fewer than 21 members - the largest group of candidates ever in its 13-year history - vied for seven open seats on the Board Of Directors. Re-elected to two-year terms were: Nicolas Hippisley Coxe, Bryan Heath, and Paul Steinke. Elected to their first two-year terms were Peter Czernin, Gary Dartnall, David Korda, and Rebecca Segal. Those remaining on the board for their second year of two-year terms are Jane Ayer, Mark Burnett, William Clark, Pamela Godfrey, Katherine Haber, Paul Heller, Hilary Mackendrick and Arnold Schwartzman.
The past three months have been especially busy with screenings of Mansfield Park, The World Is Not Enough, Everybody Loves Sunshine, The End Of The Affair, Stuart Little, Tumbleweeds, Angela’s Ashes, Topsy-Turvy, Titus and The Talented Mr Ripley. Question- and-answer guests have includ- ed Michael Apted, Alan Parker, Emily Watson, Mike Leigh and Anthony Minghella. BAFTA LA also hosted its 4th Annual Holiday Open House, a wildly successful event which began at
4.00pm and saw the last of the party-goers leave well past 11:00pm (on a week-night).
January in Los Angeles is always exciting in the lead up to the Oscars. For the fourth con- secutive year, Arnold Schwartzman, Chairman of BAFTA LA, designed both the trailer and posters for the Oscars. The 2000 Oscar poster was inspired by the 1926 silent classic, Metropolis. Arnold has also produced the trailer for the BAFTA Film Awards for the last two years, and designed last year’s BAFTA Film Awards Poster, “Keep An Eye Open For The 51st British Academy Film Awards.”
This January also marks the beginning of what will hope- fully be an annual series of screenings in Los Angeles of British films which do not have significant distribution in the US and which are eligible for BAFTA Film Awards. New From Britain will include nine films to be screened from mid-January till early-March. BAFTA LA thanks the Film and Television Department of The British Council and the British Film Office, Los Angeles for their sup- port and joint sponsorship. ■
www.baftala.org
BAFTA EAST COAST
British director Benjamin Ross and co-star Brenda Blethyn were guests in November for a glam- orous dinner after a screening of the Golden Globe winning HBO filmed drama RKO281, about the making of Citizen Kane. Later that week BAFTA East Coast sup- ported an event at Tribeca Film
Center to introduce Northern Irish film-makers to New York. Liam Neeson expressed his pride in the increasing visibility of his countrymen in the indus- try. Paul Largan of Premiere Films co-ordinated the event with the Irish Tourist Board.
Special screenings have included Tim Roth’s directorial debut The War Zone, Angela’s Ashes, Tumbleweeds and Topsy- Turvy with the likes of Roth, Alan Parker and writer Frank McCourt available for Q & A ses- sions. The Christmas party was hosted by British Consul-General Thomas Harris and his wife at their residence in New York.■
We kicked off the new Millennium in Wales with a pre- view screening of Jane Campion’s Holy Smoke, co-starring Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel, on the first weekend in January with the sup- port of FilmFour.
BAFTA Cymru was also very pleased to organise Wales’s first screening of the long awaited feature Rancid Aluminium on January 20 at the UCI, Cardiff in collaboration with local produc- tion company Fiction Factory. The film, directed by Ed Thomas was developed from Cardiff writer James Hawes’s best-sell- ing novel of the same name. Produced by Mike Parker and Mark Thomas it stars Rhys Ifans, Wales’s hottest acting property, along with Joseph Fiennes, Tara Fitzgerald, Sadie Frost, Nick Moran, Dani Behr and Steven Berkoff. The event saw a full house of 500 guests, including cast and crew and the glitterati of the Welsh media and music scenes, and was followed by a groovy party at the Evolution Night Club.
The month also saw the launch of TX, our new quarterly for the Welsh media sector and membership. This first pilot edi- tion covers a range of features, reviews and updates, with a heftysectionof policystraight
from the chiefs of our national broadcasters (BBC Cymru Wales, HTV Cymru Wales and S4C).
Looking ahead, we are plan- ning a workshop in March in Cardiff, organised in conjunction with BBC Resources and BAFTA Interactive. In the first week of April, BAFTA Cymru will be pitching into the Celtic Film & TV Festival, April 5-8, April, which this year moves to Aberystwyth in Ceredigion. Welsh director Marc Evans is expected to deliver a lecture on the A-Y of Welsh film.
The next three months will also see busy preparation for the BAFTA Annual Awards Ceremony, to be held at the CIA in Cardiff on April 30. The deadline for the submission of nomination papers in the 27 main categories is the February 14. Voting papers will be sent to members forthwith, with a return deadline of the February 28. The deadline for Short Film submissions is February 4. We expect some 1,300 guests this year, with a slicker and swifter Ceremony, high quality entertainment and numerous opportunities for ener- getic networking. Give the office a call (029 2022 3898) if you’re keen on coming or need to know more about our Awards. ■
www.baftacymru.org
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