The BAFTA Awards Weekend Lowdown
The BAFTAs are finally here! As Focus reported earlier today, the ceremony will be hosted at The Royal Opera House, by Stephen Fry at 9PM tonight on BBC1. Before this we can see Edith Bowman on the red carpet at 8.30PM.
It is a busy weekend for the award season, with voting now officially open for the 86th Academy Awards as of Valentine’s Day, with the final deadline for voting ending on the 25th of February. London will surely be transformed into, as Deadline phrase it; ‘Hollywood-on-Thames this weekend.’
Despite the award winners not being announced till tonight, BAFTA have been celebrating all weekend. Harvey Weinstein hosted a private dinner party at Little House in Mayfair for his nominees, and menswear brand Hackett yesterday hosted a Savoy lunch for Fellowship Honoree, Helen Mirren. Last night was also the night of the annual Nominees’ Party, with the 15th Charles Finch hosted dinner at Annabel’s, as Deadline mention. Presumably there will be some amazing after parties hosted by the most nominated studios. Weinstein has seven nominations shared between Philomena, The Butler and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Teaming with distributors Pathe and Entertainment One, TWC will no doubt host in one of London’s most sought after locations, as it did when The King’s Speech won 7 of it’s 14 nominated BAFTAs, celebrating in the W Hotel which opened early for the event.
Image credit to The Guardian
TWC is not the only one who will be hosting elaborate celebrations, with Warner Bros. having twenty nominations shared between Gravity, Blue Jasmine, The Great Gatsby and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Entertainment One should also be celebrating later with Twelve Years a Slave tipped to sweep the BAFTA awards tonight. Steve McQueen’s film was incredibly moving as it showed us the true horrors of racism in the US, during the pre-civil war years. The film follows the life of a free man who is kidnapped before being enslaved for twelve years of his life. It has received 9 Oscar nominations and 10 BAFTA nominations. Also in competition are Atlas Entertainment’s American Hustle with 10 BAFTA and Oscar nominations and Warner Bros. Gravity, which leads the BAFTA nominations board with 11.
Strangely, although depicting some raunchy, crazed parties on-screen, Universal are not hosting an after party for The Wolf of Wall Street (which I finally saw yesterday, go watch it). The film has four BAFTA nominations and five Oscar nominations, hopefully this will be Leo’s year. It is likely that the nominees for studios who don’t host a party themselves, will end up at one of the others after the official after party has wrapped. The official party will be hosted with a dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane. 18 of the 20 nominated actors will be in attendance tonight, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Bradley Cooper, Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett.
BAFTA CEO Amanda Berry discusses the show; “The awards show goes out in 167 territories; before 2001 it only went out in the UK. And the international audience ensures people are coming from all over the world to attend.” Berry spearheaded the decision to bring forward the BAFTA Awards to precede the Oscars in 2001. Focus will be live blogging the winners of the awards tonight so stay tuned!
