With the 76th Golden Globes out of the way, and with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse taking home their Best Animated Feature Film award, it’s now BAFTA’s turn to honour last year’s animated feats!
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) revealed on January 9 all the nominations for their 72nd British Academy Film Awards. The favourite of the bunch this year seemed to be… well, The Favourite, with a grand total of twelve nominations. However, this article will focus on the two animation categories; Animated Film and British Short Animation, each with three nominations.
This year’s Animated Film nominations featured three of the five nominations for the 76th Globes’ Best Animated Feature Film. First up was Pixar’s hugely successful sequel Incredibles 2, the latest of the studio’s many nominations of that category. Wes Anderson’s stop-motion dystopia Isle of Dogs secured the award’s second spot, marking it as his second time nominated in the category following 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Finally, the critical darling/Golden Globe winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gained the third nomination spot, making it the first BAFTA nomination for Sony Pictures Animation since 2011’s Arthur Christmas (despite that one being more of an Aardman film).
It’s worth noting as a BAFTA Animated Film nomination, Isle of Dog was the only one of this year’s bunch to be made in Britain, being animated at 3 Mills Studios in East London. Additionally, much like with 76th Globes, Alexandre Desplat’s score for that film got nominated for the Original Music award, alongside BlacKkKlansman (Terence Blanchard), If Beale Street Could Talk (Nicholas Britell), Mary Poppins Returns (Marc Shaiman), and A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Lukas Nelson).
As the title suggests, the British Short Animation category is exclusively for the UK’s local artistic creations. This year’s nominations consisted of three hand-drawn animated shorts including Elizabeth Hobbs’s I’m OK, The Brothers McLeod’s Marfa, and Jonathan Hodgson Roughhouse.
Below is a reminder of the 72nd BAFTA’s animation nominations, along with the recipients:
Animated Film
- Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird, John Walker)
- Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson, Jeremy Dawson)
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord)
British Short Animation
- I’m OK (Elizabeth Hobbs, Abigail Addison, Jelena Popović)
- Marfa (Greg McLeod, Myles McLeod)
- Roughhouse (Jonathan Hodgson, Richard Van Den Boom)
The winners are to be revealed on event day, which will be held at the Royal Albert Hall, London on February 10, 2019. Joanna Lumley (Corpse Bride) will host the event in her second consecutive year.