King's Speech reigns at BAFTA

This year's BAFTA Awards were held tonight at the Royal Opera House in London. As could have been anticipated from the film's earlier successes, the British production The King's Speech swept the Awards by winning in seven categories. (The film was nominated in 14.) The royal film grabbed the award for both the Best Film and (obviously) the Best British Film.

Best Leading Actor this year according to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was Colin Firth in his role as King George VI in The King's Speech. This was Firth's second consecutive win at the Awards since he won the same prize last year for Tom Ford's A Single Man. Last time an actor won in the same category two years in a row was when Rob Steiger won for his roles in The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964) and In The Heat Of The Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) in 1967 and 1968.


Although this was her first win at the BAFTAs, Natalie Portman followed Firth in her path to grabbing every major award this season. She won the award for the Best Leading Actress for her role in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.

While the prizes for the leading actors went to the anticipated winners, the supporting actor and actress categories went their own way and, instead of acknowledging the performances in David O. Russel's The Fighter, celebrated the British King's Speech some more. The awards went to Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter respectively. Although their performances are reportedly excellent, it would seem that BAFTA likes promoting talent from the home country.

However, this was not the case when it came down to the winner for Best Director. Out of five nominees in the category, three were born in England (Tom Hooper, Danny Boyle and Christopher Nolan) but the award went to the nominee from Mid-Western USA - David Fincher won for his work in The Social Network. This could be a sign of a possible forthcoming split between Best Picture and Best Director winners at the Oscars.

In the history of the Academy Awards - with this year's gala being the 83rd time the golden guys are handed out - the Oscars for best film and director have gone to different films 21 times and only four times in the last 20 years. Last time this happened at the 78th Academy Awards in 2005, when Paul Haggis's Crash won Best Picture but Ang Lee won the award for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain.

We'll see what this year's Oscar gala brings, and whether these new BAFTA winners triumph again in two weeks. The Academy Awards are held on Sunday, February 27.