BAFTA 2021 gets diverse with women directors, ‘Nomadland’ leading the nomination pack

The nomination for British Film Academy Awards for 2021 is far more inclusive and diverse compared to last year’s nomination when there was an outcry for the lack of diversity and focusing only on all white directing and acting nominees.

This year, there is not just record nods for female directors but also Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” and Sarah Gavron’s “Rocks” is leading the nomination chart in several categories.

“Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao’s drama about a middle-aged woman who travels across the United States in a van seeking itinerant work, scored the biggest number of high-profile nominations for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, reports New York Times. 

The film, which stars Frances McDormand and won the Golden Globe for best drama in February, picked up seven BAFTA nominations.

It will compete for best film against “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Promising Young Woman,” “The Father” and “The Mauritanian.”

Also many nominees in the talent categories come from low-budget, independent films, such as “Rocks,” a British coming-of-age tale about a Black teenager in London, that also received seven nominations.

Not to miss, four of the six directing nominees are women, including Zhao, Gavron, Shannon Murphy (“Babyteeth”) and Jasmila Zbanic (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”). Also nominated are Lee Isaac Chung for the family drama “Minari” and Thomas Vinterberg for the Danish dark comedy “Another Round.”

Other nominations in the list are Sarah Gavron for “Rocks” and Jasmila Zbanic for “Quo Vadis, Aida?” a retelling of a massacre in the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

This appears to be the result of a recent overhaul of BAFTA’s voting rules to increase the diversity of the nominees after recent criticism. Last year, no people of colour were nominated in the BAFTAs’ main acting categories, and no women were nominated for best director.

Pippa Harris, BAFTA’s deputy chair, said in a video interview that the most important change that shaped this year’s nominations was the requirement that voters watch more films than usual, rather than letting them simply see those with the most buzz from other awards or marketing campaigns.

“Time and again, people have emailed in, written in, phoned in to say that made a massive difference, and they watched films they would never have come to normally, and found work they absolutely loved,” she said.  

This year’s winners will be announced on April 11 at a ceremony in London.