BAFTA Awards 2021: Chloe Zhao’s Film Nomadland Among Lead Nominees

BAFTA Awards 2021: A year after the #BAFTASoWhite scandal, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) unveiled this year’s film nominations.

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland and Sarah Gavron’s Rocks are the leading nominees in the BAFTA Awards 2021 with seven nominations each.

Nomadland is nominated for best film, best director, best screenplay, best leading actress, best cinematography, best editing and best sound. Rocks is nominated for outstanding British film, the outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer, best director, best original screenplay, best leading actress, best supporting actress, and best casting.

Following Nomadland and Rocks are the films The Father, Minari, and Promising Young Woman with six nominations each. Meanwhile, The Dig and The Mauritan received five nominations each.

In a first for the BAFTA awards, four women have been nominated in the best director category. Last year the directing category had an all-male nominee list. Three of the nominated directors are also up for best film not in the English language.

The BAFTA Awards 2021 will take place on April 10 and 11 and will be broadcast virtually. This year, a total of 50 films received nominations. In 2020, only 39 films had received nominations. There was a push to support new talent, thus four of the five films nominated for outstanding debut were also nominated for other categories. This time nominees account for four of the six nominated directors and twenty-one of the twenty-four of the nominees in the performance categories.