BAFTA Film Awards 2023: All Quiet On The Western Front breaks ceremony’s foreign film record

Published

2 years ago

February 20, 2023

admin

All Quiet On The Western Front has made history, scoring the highest number of BAFTAs for a foreign language film with seven awards – including the night’s big prize for best film.

The Netflix anti-war epic movie had led the BAFTA nominations with 14, equalling the record set in 2001 by Crouching Tiger as a non-English language film with the most nods.

Edward Berger’s reworking of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 novel of the same name took the prizes for best director, film not in the English language, adapted screenplay, cinematography and original score and sound, as well as best film.

Its seven wins break the record for the highest number of BAFTAs won by a foreign language film – previously held by Italian coming-of-age drama Cinema Paradiso, which claimed five in 1988.

Director Berger told Sky News: “Best director is the one I never thought would work. It’s a German movie, for Christ’s sake!”

A timely anti-war film

Speaking on stage while accepting the award for best picture, cinematographer James Friend said the film showed how a generation of young German men were “poisoned by right-wing nationalistic propaganda” and he stressed that the film’s message remains relevant nearly a century on.

Berger also paid tribute to those currently fighting in Ukraine, his comments adding to a political flavour on the night, with many stars including Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell and Michelle Yeoh all wearing a blue ribbon to show their solidarity and support for refugees and displaced people around the world.

Martin McDonagh’s Irish tragi-comedy The Banshees Of Inisherin – which tells a tale of male friendship gone sour – took four gongs, as did Baz Luhrmann’s whirlwind biopic Elvis, about the king of rock and roll.

Bad luck Colin

Austin Butler, 31, was named best actor for his portrayal of Elvis, who died prematurely aged 42 in 1977. The emotional star paid tribute to the Presley family as he accepted his award, saying: “I cannot thank you enough for your love… this means the world to me.”

Elvis’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, died last month aged just 54.

Many had expected Banshees star Farrell to take the best actor prize (something he’s yet to achieve in his 25-year career), so this win was one of the surprises of the night.

Blanchett picked up the best actress award, calling the role of monstrous maestro Lydia Tar, “dangerous and potentially career-ending”.

Becoming emotional towards the end of her speech, she paid tribute to her family – listing her mother and four children – who she said had to put up with her absence for long periods of time while she was working on the movie.

A brief mix-up

The Banshees of Inisherin saw a double win in the supporting actor and actress categories, with Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan taking the prizes.

Condon’s win followed a brief mix-up, when a miscommunication between a sign language translator and deaf Oscar-winning actor Troy Kotsur, who was presenting the award, saw Carey Mulligan initially announced as the winner.

With the translator quickly correcting himself, the ceremony soon got back on track, with Condon thanking the cast – as well as her horses and dogs – for the win.

Multiverse sci-fi Everything Everywhere All At Once, indie hit Aftersun, James Cameron blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water and 1920s Hollywood love-letter Babylon all took once gong each.

A brand new format

For the first time, this year’s awards were held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank in London.

The night was hosted by actor Richard E Grant, who led the show from the auditorium, and This Morning presenter Alison Hammond who spoke to the stars in a new BAFTA studio, giving viewers at home an access-all-areas experience of one of the biggest nights in film.

For the first time in BAFTA history, four of the night’s 25 categories were broadcast live – meaning those in the auditorium got to hear the biggest winners at the same time as the viewing public, most likely prompted by the show’s bosses striving to stay relevant in a landscape of ever-declining award show audiences.

There were also live music performances from US actress Ariana DeBose, London-born rapper Little Simz and musician Dylan.

The Prince and Princess of Wales were among those in attendance, and Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren led a tribute to the late Queen.

Fair and equal representation?

While four-time BAFTA winner Blanchett called 2022 an “extraordinary year for women” in her best actress acceptance speech, just one woman – Gina Prince-Bythewood, who directed The Woman King – made the best director category, and she missed out on the prize – which went to Berger for All Quiet On The Western Front.

While men dominated the BAFTA film shortlist, and no female-directed films made it into the best film category, the outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer category was an all-female shortlist of talent; the writer and director of Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, took that award.

Ahead of the ceremony, when asked about the possibility of gender-neutral performance categories – as the Brits has adopted – BAFTA chief executive Jane Millichip said there was “no timeline” for making a decision as they want to get it right, and they are currently consulting with organisations such as GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

She has also said that BAFTA’s review process will be ongoing and constant, and will be reviewed every year.

While this year’s nominations were more diverse than previous years (the 2020 BAFTA Film shortlist didn’t contain a single non-white actor in any of the performance categories), the eventual four performing category winners are all white.

Representation is always a big talking point come awards season, following previous controversies around diversity at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars.

This is likely to once again raise questions as to whether enough is being done to improve the diversity and inclusion of our biggest awards shows.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

42 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

42 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.

UK

Wes Streeting ‘crossed the line’ by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Published

42 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

Wes Streeting 'crossed the line' by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Wes Streeting “crossed the line” by opposing assisted dying in public and the argument shouldn’t “come down to resources”, a Labour peer has said.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harriet Harman criticised the health secretary for revealing how he is going to vote on the matter when it comes before parliament later this month.

MPs are being given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines, so the government is supposed to be staying neutral.

But Mr Streeting has made clear he will vote against legalising assisted dying, citing concerns end-of-life care is not good enough for people to make an informed choice, and that some could feel pressured into the decision to save the NHS money.

He has also ordered a review into the potential costs of changing the law, warning it could come at the expense of other NHS services if implemented.

Baroness Harman said Mr Streeting has “crossed the line in two ways”.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

“He should not have said how he was going to vote, because that breaches neutrality and sends a signal,” she said.

“And secondly… he’s said the problem is that it will cost money to bring in an assisted dying measure, and therefore he will have to cut other services.

“But paradoxically, he also said it would be a slippery slope because people will be forced to bring about their own death in order to save the NHS money. Well, it can’t be doing both things.

“It can’t be both costing the NHS money and saving the NHS money.”

Baroness Harman said the argument “should not come down to resources” as it is a “huge moral issue” affecting “only a tiny number of people”.

She added that people should not mistake Mr Streeting for being “a kind of proxy for Keir Starmer”.

“The government is genuinely neutral and all of those backbenchers, they can vote whichever way they want,” she added.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously expressed support for assisted dying, but it is not clear how he intends to vote on the issue or if he will make his decision public ahead of time.

The cabinet has varying views on the topic, with the likes of Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood siding with Mr Streeting in her opposition but Energy Secretary Ed Miliband being for it.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being championed by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, who wants to give people with six months left to live the choice to end their lives.

Under her proposals, two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and a High Court judge must give their approval.

The bill will also include punishments of up to 14 years in prison for those who break the law, including coercing someone into ending their own life.

MPs will debate and vote on the legislation on 29 November, in what will be the first Commons vote on assisted dying since 2015, when the proposal was defeated.