What You Need To Know About The 2022 Baftas

The Ceremony Was Back With A Bang

The 2022 EE British Academy Film Awards celebrated the very best in film from the past year. Sunday’s ceremony, hosted by Australian actress Rebel Wilson, was held at the Royal Albert Hall – and was a great return to form following last year’s virtual ceremony. Shown on BBC1, the awards began with a rousing performance of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ by 85-year-old Shirley Bassey, in honour of Dr No’s 60th anniversary. After this, Wilson took to the stage, following in the steps of Joanna Lumley and Graham Norton, who have hosted the Baftas for years. Her biggest reaction of the night came when she raised her middle finger and said: “In all sign languages, this is the international sign for Putin” – to huge applause. Throughout the event, Wilson got laughs for a wide-ranging collection of subjects, from lockdown parties at No 10 to Prince Andrew’s visit to Pizza Express in Woking and Harry and Meghan’s TV interview with Oprah Winfrey.

It Was A Great Night For Jane Campion

The night’s two big prizes – best film and best director – went to Jane Campion and her Netflix western The Power of the Dog. The film focuses on charismatic rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch). When his brother (Jesse Plemons) brings home a new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and her son, Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love. While Cumberbatch missed out on a best actor award for his role (that went to Will Smith for his turn as Serena and Venus Williams’ father in King Richard), he did get up on stage to accept Campion’s award on her behalf. Campion was in LA following the previous night’s Directors Guild America awards. In the other actor categories, Joanna Scanlan beat Lady Gaga to win best actress for After Love; and Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress for her role as Anita in West Side Story.

Dune Won Big

Dune – the Timothée Chalamet-starring sci-fi thriller based on the 1965 book by Frank Herbert – was the biggest winner of the night. The Denis Villeneuve film – which was one of last summer’s blockbuster hits – took homes prizes for technical categories including original score, cinematography, sound, production design and visual effects. Elsewhere, big wins on the night included outstanding British film for Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast; adapted screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza; best film in a foreign language for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, a Japanese film based on a Haruki Murakami short story; and best documentary for Quest Love’s excellent Summer of Soul.

Diversity Played A Role

The 2022 nominees were voted for by the 7,000-strong British Film Academy under 220 radical changes introduced in the wake of 2020’s Bafta ceremony, when every nominee was white. The measures included quotas for filmmakers and the compulsory viewing by voters of at least 15 randomly selected titles in contention. We were pleased to see the EE Rising Star Award – voted for by the public – go to No Time To Die’s Lashana Lynch. Troy Kotsur became the first deaf actor to win a Bafta for his role in family drama Coda. He is the second-ever deaf actor to be nominated for an Academy Award, so all eyes will be on him at the Oscars later this month. Coda also took best adapted screenplay. Elsewhere, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Encanto was named best animation. Accepting her award, composer Germaine Franco said she had wanted to make a film that tells “my beautiful brown children they are seen and heard and they’re important”.

Now All Eyes Are On The Oscars

While the Baftas are big news – especially for us Brits – the Oscars are the awards everyone gets most excited about. On a personal level, we’re excited to see Drive My Car nominated for four Oscars, including best picture and best director. We’ll have to see what the Academy Awards ceremony has in store for two weeks’ time…