2017 BAFTA Preview and Predictions: Will La La Land win or is there an upset in the mix?

Erik Anderson February 9, 2017

stephen-fry-baftas — BAFTA host Stephen Fry

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The 2017 British Film Academy Awards are this Sunday with Stephen Fry making his 12th appearance as host. La La Land leads the nominations with 11, followed by Arrival and Nocturnal Animals with nine apiece. La La Land was nominated for a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations; Arrival earned eight, Nocturnal Animals just one – amazingly, not one that it earned at BAFTA. On the flip side, Moonlight only earned just four BAFTA nominations but eight Oscar nods.

Speaking of Nocturnal Animals and Oscar, there are other places where BAFTA really went its own way this year. Cannes winner I, Daniel Blake is nominated for Best Film, Director, Original Screenplay and Supporting Actress at BAFTA but received zero Oscar nominations. It’s the first BAFTA Best Film nominee to earn no Oscar attention in over a decade. BAFTA’s history as a solid Oscar Best Picture precursor is also quite checkered. The last two years, BAFTA has given their top prize to non-Best Picture winners (The Revenant and Boyhood over Spotlight and Birdman). Since 2000 they have only matched up eight times. This year, the fight is between Arrival, I, Daniel Blake, La La Land, Moonlight and Nocturnal Animals. Three of those five are nominated for Oscar’s Best Picture. Prevailing thought says they will go with Oscar frontrunner La La Land, but they could go out on a limb and reward Moonlight or Arrival here.

As previously announced, BAFTA nominee Mel Brooks will receive the BAFTA Fellowship.

There was a potential controversy brewing from reports that the BBC brass was going to edit out remarks in acceptance speeches referring to politics or racism but they recently denied those reports.

“All content on the BBC is published in line with our editorial guidelines. As with any televised awards show, we seek to fairly and accurately reflect the passionately held views of recipients and attendees,” the BBC told the Telegraph in a statement.

“At the same time, we have a duty to fairly reflect as many awards, nominees, and winners as possible. Where we have to edit for length, we ensure that the essence of the speeches, which are included, are properly reflected.”

The ceremony will be broadcast on BBC One (BBC America in the United States) from the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday, February 12th beginning at 8:30pm GMT. The red carpet will be live streamed on Facebook between 4.30-6.30pm. To find the broadcaster for your territory check here.

photo credit: (Yui Mok/PA) — Meryl Streep is ready to photobomb those Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling shots(photo credit: Yui Mok/PA)

Full line-up of attendees:

Nominees:

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Amy Adams, Andrea Arnold, Andrew Garfield, Anya Taylor-Joy, Barry Jenkins, Casey Affleck, Damien Chazelle, David Hare, David Heyman, David Yates, Denis Villeneuve, Dev Patel, Emily Blunt, Emma Stone, Hayley Squires, Hugh Grant, J.K. Rowling, Ken Loach, Kenneth Lonergan, Laia Costa, Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Nicole Kidman, Pedro Almodóvar, Ron Howard, Ryan Gosling, Tom Ford, Tom Holland, Viggo Mortensen and Viola Davis.

Presenters and other attendees:

Andrea Riseborough, Bryce Dallas Howard, Carmen Ejogo, Daisy Ridley, Eddie Redmayne, Ella Purnell, Ewen Bremner, Felicity Jones, George MacKay, Holliday Grainger, Isabelle Huppert, Jamie Dornan, Julia Stiles, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Luke Evans, Sir Mark Rylance, Noel Clarke, Noomi Rapace, Penelope Cruz, Rafe Spall, Riz Ahmed, Russell Tovey, Simon Pegg, Sophie Turner, Stanley Tucci and Thandie Newton.

Predictions with alt choices:

BEST FILM
LA LA LAND Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt
alt: MOONLIGHT Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adele Romanski

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach, Rebecca O’Brien, Paul Laverty
alt: AMERICAN HONEY Andrea Arnold, Lars Knudsen, Pouya Shahbazian, Jay Van Hoy

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
Notes on Blindness: PETER MIDDLETON (Writer/Director/Producer), JAMES SPINNEY (Writer/Director), JO-JO ELLISON (Producer)
alt: Under the Shadow: BABAK ANVARI (Writer/Director), EMILY LEO, OLIVER ROSKILL, LUCAN TOH (Producers)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SON OF SAUL László Nemes, Gábor Sipos
alt: TONI ERDMANN Maren Ade, Janine Jackowski

DOCUMENTARY
13TH Ava DuVernay
alt: NOTES ON BLINDNESS Peter Middleton, James Spinney

ANIMATED FILM
ZOOTROPOLIS (ZOOTOPIA) Byron Howard, Rich Moore
alt: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS Travis Knight

DIRECTOR
LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
alt: ARRIVAL Denis Villeneuve

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
alt: I, DANIEL BLAKE Paul Laverty

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
ARRIVAL Eric Heisserer
alt: NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Tom Ford

LEADING ACTOR
CASEY AFFLECK Manchester by the Sea
alt: RYAN GOSLING La La Land

LEADING ACTRESS
EMMA STONE La La Land
alt: AMY ADAMS Arrival

SUPPORTING ACTOR
MAHERSHALA ALI Moonlight
alt: DEV PATEL Lion

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
VIOLA DAVIS Fences
alt: NAOMIE HARRIS Moonlight

ORIGINAL MUSIC
LA LA LAND Justin Hurwitz
alt: NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Abel Korzeniowski

CINEMATOGRAPHY
LA LA LAND Linus Sandgren
alt: NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Seamus McGarvey

EDITING
LA LA LAND Tom Cross
alt: ARRIVAL Joe Walker

PRODUCTION DESIGN
LA LA LAND Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, David Wasco
alt: HAIL, CAESAR! Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

COSTUME DESIGN
LA LA LAND Mary Zophres
alt: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Colleen Atwood

MAKE-UP & HAIR
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Donald Mowat, Yolanda Toussieng
alt: FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS J. Roy Helland, Daniel Phillips

SOUND
LA LA LAND Mildred Iatrou Morgan, Ai-Ling Lee, Steve A. Morrow, Andy Nelson
alt: ARRIVAL Claude La Haye, Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Sylvain Bellemare

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
THE JUNGLE BOOK Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones, Adam Valdez
alt: ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Neil Corbould, Hal Hickel, Mohen Leo, John Knoll, Nigel Sumner

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
THE ALAN DIMENSION Jac Clinch, Jonathan Harbottle, Millie Marsh
alt: A LOVE STORY Khaled Gad, Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara, Elena Ruscombe-King

BRITISH SHORT FILM
HOME Shpat Deda, Afolabi Kuti, Daniel Mulloy, Scott O’Donnell
alt: THE PARTY Farah Abushwesha, Emmet Fleming, Andrea Harkin, Conor MacNeill

EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
TOM HOLLAND
alt: RUTH NEGGA

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.