If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then perhaps coming to the Baftas looking for diversity is an exercise in madness. But this year, it was supposed to be different. Bafta’s chairman, Krishnendu Majumdar, announced an overhaul of voting and membership in 2020 after the awards’ lack of diversity was shamed both online and onstage – the latter by the best actor winner, Joaquin Phoenix. In response to that year’s all-white acting nominations, he said: “I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you’re not welcome here. I think that’s the message we’re sending to people that have contributed so much to our medium and our industry and in ways that we benefit from.”
Bafta took on the criticism and got to work, setting goals for 50-50 gender balance in its membership, with 20% from minority ethnic groups, 12% disabled people, and 10% LGBTQI+ by the year 2025. And where the 2023 Academy Awards nominations ignored the work of director Gina Prince-Bythewood and actors Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler, Bafta recognised them. Much was made of the red-carpet arrivals: Davis in a shimmering purple cape; Michelle Yeoh dripping in jewels; Angela Bassett in gargantuan lilac sleeves; and Ke Huy Quan radiating his signature enthusiasm. The night was set to show the Oscars just what they were missing.
So where did it all go wrong? How did we end up with a group shot of all the grinning awards winners circulating on social media, in which the only person of colour was the Bafta host Alison Hammond – no Davis, no Yeoh, no Bassett?
The first thing to acknowledge is that maybe they didn’t go wrong. Endless column inches could be spent debating the merits of Everything Everywhere All at Once v All Quiet on the Western Front (I wasn’t particularly impressed by either). And awards are fundamentally subjective exercises. Trying to get film fans to unanimously agree that Cate Blanchett was more convincing as a lecherous conductor than Deadwyler as the bereaved mother of a lynched child, or vice versa, is a fool’s errand. But what awards most straightforwardly determine is the state of the community that gives them out – and that is not just about Bafta voters but the British film industry itself.
In 2023, British film still seems resistant to change, to reimagining what gets made and what is celebrated. Some of our best filmmakers, such as Terence Davies and Joanna Hogg, are studiously ignored by Bafta voters, and Black British directors Menelik Shabazz, Horace Ové and Ngozi Onwurah innovated without the support of many of the bodies that purport to champion British film. Lottery funding went to the odious Sex Lives of the Potato Men and the deeply unfunny romcom How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, while generations of filmmakers of colour struggled to follow up on their promising debuts.
For all the purported recent progress, the British film establishment still seems content to recreate and reward only the most typical, straightforward filmmaking: second world war films, period dramas and biopics. And as a result, its most prestigious awards have little relevancy except as a precursor to the Academy Awards. Even Steve McQueen, who has directed two Bafta-winning films, warned of the dangers of this approach in 2020, saying: “If the Baftas are not supporting British talent, if you’re not supporting the people who are making headway in the industry, then I don’t understand what you are there for.”
There was plenty worth celebrating last night. Barry Keoghan, who grew up in foster care, won best supporting actor in an industry where breaking in without family connections and generational wealth seems increasingly impossible. The queer director Charlotte Wells won outstanding debut for Aftersun, a stunning portrait of a father-daughter relationship, nostalgia and grief. Guillermo del Toro’s delightful stop-motion passion project, Pinocchio, loosened Disney/Pixar’s stranglehold on the animation category.
But those triumphs were overshadowed by the creeping discomfort that the awards were benefiting from the work and presence of many people of colour without ever handing them a statuette. By the end of the night, when it slowly sank in that every single winner was white, you could practically feel the Bafta team’s heads sink into their hands as they braced for yet another social media storm.
So, while the debate may rage on for eternity about whether All Quiet on the Western Front deserves to be the latest non-English language film to win a best picture Bafta, there are more interesting questions to be asked about who or what the British film industry assigns value to. And if inclusion in the Baftas is dependent on success in an industry rife with systemic prejudice, then what further disadvantage does that pass on to nominees? Awards are only as prestigious as the public perception of them, and by the time the Bafta inclusivity targets are met in 2025 it may be too late to claw back any cultural relevancy.
Some of us still believe the Baftas are capable of celebrating the incredible and diverse filmmaking talent in Britain and around the world, but that relies on the academy understanding that diversity is about more than statistics. It’s about asking why we value and reward what we do – and being willing to challenge that.
• This article was amended on 27 February 2023. An earlier version said that All Quiet on the Western Front was the first non-English language film to win the best picture Bafta; there have been a number of such winners since the awards began, including Roma, Jean de Florette and Bicycle Thieves.
Leila Latif is a writer and critic
