BAFTA 2007 Longlists
Michael Sheen, Helen Mirren in The Queen (top); Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (bottom)
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the longlists for the 2007 BAFTA Awards. The lists consist of 15 titles per category following the first round of BAFTA voting.
Casino Royale and The Queen, the two most commercially successful British films of 2006, were mentioned 14 times each.
Others in the longlists are Pan’s Labyrinth, Babel, Children of Men, and The Departed, each with 13 mentions; The Last King of Scotland and Little Miss Sunshine with 12; Volver and Dreamgirls with 10; Apocalypto, The Devil Wears Prada, and Notes on a Scandal with 9; Bobby and Flags of Our Fathers with 8; United 93 with 7; and The History Boys with 5.
Except for Dreamgirls and Apocalypto, all of the aforementioned films are up for a best film nomination. Of those, only The Devil Wears Prada failed to get a corresponding best director mention. In place of David Frankel, Mel Gibson was nominated for Apocalypto.
Andrea Arnold’s Red Road
Missing in action from the top categories are the Weinstein Co.’s Factory Girl, which was rushed into release in order to be considered for this year’s awards, and prestigious small-scale British films such as London to Brighton and Red Road. The latter film’s stars, Tony Curran and Kate Dickie, were chosen best actor and best actress at the British Independent Film Awards this past November. (According to Adam Dawtrey’s Variety report on the BAFTAs, the distributors of the small British films didn’t send out screeners.)
Unfortunately, the BAFTAs, much like the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and U.S. film critics’ groups, tend to like their nominees — and especially their winners — to be well-known internationally (read: in the United States). Thus, precious few non-English-language films managed to get into the BAFTA Award longlists for best film, best director, and best performances, while even local productions with little chance of breaking into the U.S. market, as the aforementioned Red Road and London to Brighton, have been thoroughly ignored.
Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
Additionally, like other awards groups the BAFTAs have an absurd way of listing leading and supporting performances. If an unknown had played Meryl Streep’s role in The Devil Wears Prada, chances are every awards group would have listed that actress in the supporting category. The BAFTAs have Streep as the lead and Anne Hathaway — in whose character The Devil dwells — as a supporting player.
In another example, Greg Kinnear, as much a part of the Little Miss Sunshine ensemble as Toni Colette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, and Steve Carell, shows up in the best actor longlist, whereas the other four are listed in the best supporting categories.
And in case you’re wondering …
Several titles found in U.S. critics’ best-of-the-year lists — e.g. Letters from Iwo Jima — can’t be found in the BAFTA longlists because they will not open in the United Kingdom in time to qualify for this year’s awards. To be eligible, films must open before Feb. 11, 2007, the date the BAFTA winners will be announced. In previous years, qualifying films could open until the end of March.
The longlists will be turned into shortlists consisting of five nominees when the second round of voting comes to a close on Jan. 12.
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Tags: BAFTA, BAFTA 2007, Casino Royale, Daniel Craig, Film Awards, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Michael Sheen, Red Road, The Queen
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