With each passing year the attention paid to the Bafta film awards turns up a notch, as campaigns jostle and reposition themselves in the quest for the real prize: an Academy Award. The Oscar race is pretty open this year, even more so after the Emilia Pérez debacle, but with its British centre of gravity and slightly differing nominations list, the Baftas have their own dynamic. Hence the Baftas can sometimes seem to be a fairground-mirror reflection of the American contest, or (looked at the other way) an assertion of a similar but separate cultural identity.
The most obvious example of this is the strong showing for Belfast rap comedy Kneecap, which could walk off with a fistful of Baftas, but failed to even get on the Academy nomination sheet. Hard Truths star Marianne Jean-Baptiste is the other big Oscar casualty, but she is in with a major shout for best actress here. And in a wider sense, the current Oscar frontrunners – The Brutalist, Anora, A Complete Unknown – may not resonate quite so strongly with British voters, so expect Conclave, a (largely) domestic effort, to put up a significant fight and follow through on its nominations lead.
