‘All Quiet’ wins best picture British Academy Film Awards

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Antiwar German drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” has won seven prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards.

Irish tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” took four trophies, including best British film, while rock biopic “Elvis” also won four on Sunday night in London.

Austin Butler took the best-actor trophy for “Elvis,” and the best actress prize went to Cate Blanchett for orchestral drama “Tár.”

“All Quiet”’ filmmaker Edward Berger was named best director.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

LONDON (AP) — Hollywood stars and U.K. royalty converged on London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday for the British Academy Film Awards, where German-language antiwar drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” leds the pack of nominees.

The visceral depiction of life and death in the World War I trenches was up for 14 awards, including best picture. It received a handful of early awards for best adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, score and a film not in English, and cemented its favorite status when filmmaker Edward Berger was named best director.

Irish tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin“ and madcap metaverse romp “Everything Everywhere All at Once” have 10 nominations each, including best picture.

“Banshees” won the separate award for best British film.

“Best what award?” joked writer-director Martin McDonagh of the film, shot in Ireland with a largely Irish cast and crew. It has British funding, and McDonagh was born in Britain to Irish parents.

“Banshees” also won for McDonagh’s original screenplay, and awards for Kerry Condon as best supporting actress and Barry Keoghan for best supporting actor.

Baz Lurhmann’s flamboyant musical biopic “Elvis” won trophies for casting, costume design and hair and makeup

Actor Richard E. Grant hosted the ceremony, walking onstage in a luxurious white cape after a jokey introductory film that saw him taking advice from Steve Martin and pulling up to the concert hall in the Batmobile.

Joking about the infamous altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock at last year’s Oscars, Grant said, “Nobody on my watch gets slapped tonight. Except on the back.”

“West Side Story” star Ariana DeBose opened the show by performing “Sisters are Doin’ it for Themselves,” with an added rap shoutout to some of the nominated women, including Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis and Michelle Yeoh.

Guests and presenters walking the red carpet on the south bank of the River Thames included Colin Farrell, Ana de Armas, Eddie Redmayne, Brian Cox, Florence Pugh, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cynthia Erivo, Julianne Moore and Lily James. Many wore blue ribbons in support of refugees and displaced people.

Heir to the throne Prince William, who is president of Britain’s film and television academy, was in the audience alongside his wife Kate, Princess of Wales.

Helen Mirren paid tribute to William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September. Mirren, who portrayed the late monarch onscreen in “The Queen” and onstage in “The Audience,” called Elizabeth “the nation’s leading lady.”

The prizes — officially the EE BAFTA Film Awards — are Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards and will be watched closely for hints of who may win at the Oscars on March 12.

Last month’s BAFTA nominations announcement helped propel the somber, Netflix-backed “All Quiet” into an awards-season favorite. Its tally of nominations is a joint record for a film not in the English language, equaling the 14 for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2001.

“All Quiet,” “Banshees” and “Everything Everywhere” are all best-picture contenders at the Oscars, where “Everything Everywhere” has a leading 11 nominations.

Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white.

This year there were 11 female directors up for awards across all categories, including documentary and animated films. But just one of the main best-director nominees was female: Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King.”

Leading actress contenders are Yeoh; Blanchett for “Tár”: Viola Davis for “The Woman King”; Danielle Deadwyler for “Till”; Ana de Armas for “Blonde” and Emma Thompson for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.”

Blanchett said it had been “an extraordinary year for female performers. To be counted among them is really special.”

The best-actor category pits Farrell against Austin Butler for “Elvis”; Brendan Fraser for “The Whale”; Daryl McCormack for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” Paul Mescal for “Aftersun” and Bill Nighy for “Living.”

This is a strong year for Irish actors at the BAFTAs, with McCormack also up for the BAFTA Rising Star award, and Condon, Keoghan, Farrell and Brendan Gleeson all getting acting nominations for “Banshees.”

McCormack hailed the event as “the Irish BAFTAs.”

“It is a small country, but to see the talent that comes out of it is quite amazing,” he said.

Three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell became the first costume designer to be awarded the academy’s top honor, the BAFTA fellowship.

The harsh world outside showbiz intruded on the awards when Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, who works for investigative website Bellingcat, said he had been “banned” from the awards because of a risk to public security. Grozev is featuref in “Navalny,” a film about jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny that won the best documentary BAFTA.

The Metropolitan Police said it would not comment “on the safety of an individual or the advice they may have been given.” But the force noted that “some journalists face the hostile intentions of foreign states whilst in the U.K.”

Jamie Lee Curtis, a supporting actress nominee for “Everything Everywhere,” said the chance awards season provides to celebrate cinema was more important than who wins.

“It’s a moment of celebration in the midst of everything,” Curtis told The Associated Press on the red carpet. “It’s hard out there. Everywhere. All at once. All the time.”

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Associated Press writer Hilary Fox contributed to this report.