The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced its longlist for the 2010 Orange BAFTA awards, with Lone Scherfig’s An Education ahead of the potential nominees with 17 mentions including best film, director, actor Peter Sarsgaard and actress Carey Mulligan.
A close second, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds has 15 mentions while Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker took 12. James Cameron’s Avatar and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones both received 11 each. Duncan Jones’ directorial debut Moon follows with an honorable 10 mentions.
The BAFTA longlist is the result of first round voting by Academy members with 15 films eligible in each category. The shortlist will reduce that number to five nominations in each field. Those nominations will be announced on January 21 and the awards ceremony will be held on February 21.
Traditionally the nominations in the category of “Film Not in the English Language” are announced before other catagories. This year the films nominated are Broken Embraces, Coco Before Chanel, Let the Right One In, A Prophet and The White Ribbon.
Despite leading the way in mentions and likely to receive a nomination in most categories, An Education has strong competition that could possibly result in very few awards. It’s best chance for an award lies in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Nick Hornby’s phenomenal job in expanding a small portion of Lynn Barber’s memoir into a feature film.
The full BAFTA longlist is available at Variety.
Who do you think will take Best Picture at the BAFTA’s?