BAFTA Releases Longlists for British Academy Film Awards 2021

New 2021 rules promote diversity in membership and voting; Pixar’s animated feature ‘Soul’ longlisted in five categories including Best Film, Animated Film, Special Visual Effects, Original Score, and Sound.

The British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) released longlists for the 2021 EE British Academy Film Awards. This follows the BAFTA 2020 Review, where 120 wide-ranging changes were made across voting, membership, and campaigning to address a lack of diversity in the 2020 Film Awards nominations. As part of these changes, a new longlisting initial round was introduced resulting in three rounds of voting.

Round One voting, which took place from January 12-26, produced the longlists in all categories announced today. Round Two voting, which takes place from February 19 to March 1, will determine the nominations to be announced on March 9. Round Three voting will be from March 25 to April 7 and will determine the winners, to be announced at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, April 11. The EE Rising Star Award nominations will be announced on Wednesday, March 3.

“The longlists announced today reflect some of the key changes we’ve already begun to implement as part of our ongoing Review,” commented BAFTA Film Committee chair, Marc Samuelson. “A big thank you goes to our membership for embracing these changes so positively and quickly especially during this challenging time. BAFTA View is already helping level the playing field for all entrants this year and we’re really pleased that over 120,000 streams have taken place. I hope today’s longlists shows you that we remain committed to change in all aspects of the BAFTA’s awards on an ongoing basis.”

“The film industry has had an incredibly difficult year and I would like to thank the distributors for working with us to ensure films were made available for members to watch on BAFTA View,” added BAFTA chief executive Amanda Berry Obe. “Following the 2020 Review, we introduced over 120 wide-ranging changes across the organization, including a new Film Awards Round One to allow longlisting. The addition of this new round was to ensure that more films were seen during the initial voting process. Before voting in the next round, which will deliver the nominations, members are asked to watch all films in the categories they vote in to ensure every film is given full and proper consideration.”

Animation and visual effects were well represented in the longlists; Pixar’s ‘Soul’ was listed in five categories including Best Film, Animated Film, Special Visual Effects, Original Score, and Sound. Highlights include:

Best Film (15 films go through to the Round Two of voting, and five will be nominated):