When Damien Chazelle’s wonderfully uplifting yet ultimately poignant musical “La La Land” won seven awards at the recently concluded Golden Globes, it was framed as something of an epiphany. It was the exact same number of nominations it got then, and is now considered the most successful film in the history of the Golden Globe Awards, as well as the seventh film to sweep its nominations (closest to get there were two previous Golden Globe-winning films from 1976 and 1979 that won six for six). At that point analysts were looking at a possibility of a just as strong performance for the next Academy (Oscar) Awards.
But there are other award-giving bodies that’ll come before, and one of them, the British Academy of Film and Television, has been very generous to “La La Land”.
New nominations
This Tuesday January 10 came the big news that the Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone starrer is now up for an impressive eleven BAFTA awards. This is significant as the BAFTA is considered to be the UK counterpart to the Oscars. As expected, leading this new crop of nominations are the categories for ‘Best Film’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’ and ‘Best Actress’, something Chazelle, Gosling and Stone would be very pleased about. And as already stated, this crop of new nominations are being taken as a strong indicator of possible similar success when Oscar season arrives this coming February.
To round things off, the rest of the BAFTA categories that “La La Land” has been nominated for are as follows: original screenplay, cinematography, film music, sound, editing, costume design and production design. The closest contenders of the film in terms of nominations are fellow American productions “Arrival”, a thoughtful sci-fi flick and “Nocturnal Animals”, a psychological thriller.
Both of these snagged nine nominations each.
Other BAFTA nominees
Several of the BAFTA nominations alongside "La La Land" were similar names from the Golden Globes held last Sunday, January 8, with films such as “Manchester by the Sea” and “Lion”, and then names such as Viggo Mortensen, Andrew Garfield, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep.
The announcement of contenders was made by Dominic Cooper and Sophie Turner at the London HQ of the British Academy of Film and Television, and the winners will be declared February 12, two weeks before the Academy Awards, at the Royal Albert Hall still in London. To differentiate from the Oscars, BAFTA has a separate ‘Best British Film’ category, this year’s nominees being “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, “Under the Shadow”, “Denial”, “I, Daniel Drake”, “Notes on Blindness” and “American Honey”. Here's wishing the best for "La La Land" in this new awards arena.
