Winners last night speak of stories from the margins and triumph…
THERE were powerful representations of minority, diverse and immigrant cultures at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) Film Awards last night.
Hollywood star Zoe Saldana, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in ‘Emilia Perez’, made a powerful speech for women and minority cultures, and dedicated her award to her trans nephew.
The film is musical about a male Mexican drugs cartel boss who transitions to becomes a woman. Saldana plays her loyal and smart lawyer who anchors the process and is her trustworthy advisor all along.
In effect, Saldana was making the case for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion – and saying effectively, it is too important and necessary – to just go away and sulk in a corner because certain things have changed in her native US.
She said it meant a lot for her to do the film in Spanish – her first language and something many of us who have a different mother tongue could relate to.
She felt ‘Emilia Perez’ shone a light on all those women who go about their work and life, “unseen” and often ignored or considered unimportant.
She told the assembled media in the press room just after receiving her award on stage, that she had strong women around her and came from a matriarchal culture.
Answering a question about what her older self would say to the younger one, she stated: “Your instincts are right, trust yourself more.”
The two big winners on the evening were ‘Conclave’ and ‘The Brutalist’ – both taking four Baftas each.
‘Conclave’ is described as a papal thriller and is a British production with a starry cast and on paper doesn’t sound particularly exciting – Catholic bishops get to choose a new pope but Tessa Ross, the film’s Bafta award winning producer, described it as a political thriller and said it contained “hope’, presumably that our world might still become a better place.
‘Conclave’ won both Best Film and Outstanding British Film.
Adrien Brody won Leading Actor award for playing a Hungarian Holocaust architect survivor, who as a refugee in the US wants to make something of his life and leave a legacy.
He spoke movingly about his own grandparents leaving Hungary in 1956 and settling in the US – and ‘The Brutalist’ is an immigrant story through and through. Does it not embody the (real and powerful) idea of America itself?
Mikey Madison won for Leading Actress in ‘Anora’. She plays a sex worker who has a crazy few days with the young son of a Russian oligarch in New York, ends up marrying him and then dealing with the explosive fall out. Madison plays a New York born Russian heritage erotic dancer.
She dedicated her award to sex workers, saying she had done much research, talking to real sex workers and admired many for their strength of character.
Brady Corbet, the director, said that at no point did he compromise – he won the Best Director Award. He used a 35mm film format for shooting that was first developed in the 1950s and his cinematographer Lol Crawley and composer Daniel Blumberg, who also both won Baftas, spoke about the collaborative process and how the framing and the music all attempted to give weight to its epic quality. It is some three and half hours long and like standard Bollywood films actually has an intermission – Colbert said it was important to him to stick to his vision – and he has been vindicated. In some ways, it is a victory for Cinema – with a big C, more please.
In a similar fashion, the makers of ‘Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’ – Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui, Lizzie Gillett, and Robert Ford, said they had been rejected 15 times but stuck to their vision – before they got the funding for their film which won Best Documentary. It tells the story of Christopher Reeve, the star of Superman movies in the 1980s who became a disability campaigner and activist after a riding accident left him paralysed from the waist down. They praised the way Warner Bros distributed the film. www.asianculturevulture.com Associate Editor Suman Bhuchar reviewed it earlier this year.
The Rising Star award – voted for by the public went to David Jonsson.
He was disarmingly humble in the press room, saying he had “no strategy” or design behind his career. He gave the impression that he just liked to keep working and that often family and friends didn’t know too much about his work – like his lead role in the independently made romantic comedy – ‘Rye Lane’ about two black singletons going on a date in Brixton, London. He appears in ‘Alien: Romulus’ and was a breakout star of the hit British TV series ‘Industry’ in its first series. Nabhaan Rizwan was nominated and will enjoy a higher profile it – he did lots of social media in relation.
Jesse Eisenberg, who won for Best Original Screenplay for his film, ‘A Real Pain’, was funny and self-deprecating – telling the press room that he felt people in the US saw him as boring, but in the UK, it was different. He revealed that he was originally writing about two Americans on a tour to Mongolia when he saw an ad for a Holocaust tour. The film charts two cousins from the US going on just such a tour. Kieran Culkin who plays the other American alongside Eisenberg himself won the Best Supporting Role. He was not in London. Culkin’s character, said Eisenberg, could be many things all at once – he could be both crass and moving – and is in the film; and something of a modern condition, we feel.
Actor Warwick Davis who received a Bafta Fellowship – the highest award bestowed by the Academy, spoke about learning of his award on the toilet, where he said he “does a lot of his admin” and talked about how George Lucas, who first cast him as Ewok in a Star Wars film, was a mentor and joked that Lucas would be asking him about his own Bafta Fellowship – which does seem like a good point!
On stage, he talked about his late wife and learning to be happy again – in the press room, when winners come in, the sound on the live TV feed is turned down.
‘Emilia Perez’ won in the Best Film Not in the English language – beating off Payal Kapadia’s gorgeous, ‘All We Imagine as Light’. We have championed the film since its world premiere in Cannes (See our Instagram pin).
And speaking of another disappointment – Dev Patel (‘Monkey Man’), Karan Kandhari (‘Sister Midnight’) or Sandhya Suri (‘Santosh’) didn’t win in the Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer category – that went to Rich Peppiatt of ‘Kneecap’.
He spoke up on stage for minority cultures telling the 2,000 or so guests inside the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank about how he moved from London to Northern Ireland because his wife was from there and how he ended up making a film in the Irish language. In some ways, this small independent film which first premiered at Sundance in the US is conquering the world and shows you what you can do with vision and self-belief.
(Sailesh Ram – editor http://www.asianculturevulture.com)
Gallery below – videos from the press room to follow – Adrien Brody, Mikey Madison, Brady Corbet and Warwick Davis (pending, to be confirmed)
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