'Good Morning, and Bad Luck'
An article by Roger Shannon from the Birmingham Post - Tuesday 21st February 2006

'Good Morning, and Bad Luck' said the punning text I got on Monday morning after the 2006 BAFTA Awards the night before. Bad Luck, indeed. Pipped at the post by an animated rabbit and an eccentric inventor. George and me, we both went home with empty hands.

Shaded by colour drained London skies and lashed with monochrome rain, the whoozy red of the carpet curling into the ODEON Leicester Square was a seductive, though slippy sight. Sunday's BAFTA Awards ceremony was Oscar-style lavish and lapped up by an audience of one billion round the globe.

Leicester Square itself was transformed into a snaking parade, around which the glitterati of the film industry show ponyed their way into the cinema lit up by the popping glare of the paparazzi. And, for the first time in their own press pen, the waparazzi, film fans armed with their image taking mobile phones.

Those two Birmingham film pioneers - Oscar Deutsch and Michael Balcon - figure prominently at the BAFTA's. The annual Awards ceremony takes place in one of Oscar Deutsch's most celebrated art deco cinemas, celebrating in 2006 its 70th year, and one of the BAFTA Awards is given in the name of Birmingham's film knight, the Michael Balcon Award for outstanding contribution to British Cinema, celebrating Balcon's role as a founding member of BAFTA, the British Academy for Film and Television Arts.

No longer a small scale British affair, as it was in 2000, the last time that I'd been associated with a BAFTA nominated film, and award winner on the night along with GLADIATOR, BILLY ELLIOT, and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. That year, at BFI Production we won with the film, SHADOWSCAN.

This year, FESTIVAL, which I had executive produced for Scottish Screen, had been nominated for a brace of BAFTA's - for best British Film, and for best newcomer (film's writer/director, Annie Griffin). We were up against a strong line up of other British films, including PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, THE CONSTANT GARDENER, COCK AND BULL STORY, and WALLACE AND GROMMIT - CURSE OF THE WERE RABBIT. A fearsome foursome, indeed.

FESTIVAL, Annie Griffin's debut feature film, is a black comedy about the annual Edinburgh Festival and features a host of emerging UK comic talent, including the two male leads from Channel 4's THE IT CROWD. With two Scottish BAFTA's already under its belt, we were hopeful of the Best Newcomer Award. This was awarded, however, to Joe Wright, making his feature film debut with the Kiera Knightley inspired PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

One down.

With Fernando Meirelle's adaptation of the John Le Carre novel buoyed up by ten nominations, THE CONSTANT GARDENER was the favourite for BAFTA for Best British film. Yet on the night we were all cursed by the were rabbit itself, as Nick Park's plasticine epic of British eccentricity hopped off with the award.

Two down.

For Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, being overlooked in this category was a precursor to their subsequent lack of success in Best Actor and Best Actress categories, where there was an American clean sweep for Philip Seymour Hoffman (as the writer, Truman Capote in CAPOTE) and Reese Witherspoon (as the singer, June Carter in the Man in Black bio pic, WALK THE LINE).

This strong American showing continued with Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN shepherding both Best Film and Best Director and with CRASH landing both Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress BAFTA's (for Thandie Newton, one of the few UK successes on the night).

George Clooney, a Renaissance Man of cinema with four nominations as director, writer and two for supporting actor (GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK; SYRIANA), surprisingly left empty handed.

'Good Morning, and Bad Luck' for George also.
Roger Shannon