Ten Irish contenders including Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley, and Niamh Algar have been named among the BAFTA long list ahead of the 74th edition of the British Academy Film Awards, which take place on April 11th.
The announcement comes as BAFTA looks to implement new changes to the voting procedures following criticism last year that their nominations were widely considered to be lacking in national, ethnic, and gender diversity.
The key changes come following an in-depth investigation into membership and voting, which has seen a new longlist system introduced in four acting categories, as well as the Best Director and Outstanding British Film categories.
The idea behind this is that voting members choose an extended longlist; the top 80% (roughly) of which make the final longlist, while the final slots are allocated by a diverse jury, believed to be consisting of 12 industry professionals, per category. This Jury selects from the remaining contenders from the extended longlist selected by Academy members.
Of those successfully shortlisted, Ireland’s Element Pictures leads the way with Nick Rowland’s Calm With Horses and Phyllida Lloyd’s Herself both being long-listed for this year’s BAFTA’s in the Outstanding British Film category.
Calm With Horses’ stars Niamh Algar and Barry Keoghan were also long-listed for Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor, respectively, alongside British actor Cosmo Jarvis in the Lead Actor category. While the film itself was also named in the Outstanding Debut By A British Writer, Director or Producer, and Casting category.
Two of Ireland’s best actresses, Saoirse Ronan, and Jessie Buckley, have also been longlisted. Buckley in Leading Actress for I’m Thinking Of Ending Things; Ronan alongside Algar in Supporting Actress for Ammonite.
As expected, Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar hopeful Wolfwalkers was longlisted in Best Animated Film, while three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer Consolata Boyle has been named among the Costume Design long list for her work on Radioactive.
The final nominated shortlist will be announced on March 9th with the BAFTA Awards taking place on April 11th.