Both Edward Berger and Brady Corbet’s dramas take four awards while Demi Moore denied comeback prize as competition heats up for next month’s Oscars
Conclave, Edward Berger’s Vatican-set thriller starring Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal overseeing the election of a new pope, went into this year’s Bafta ceremony with a dozen nominations – the most of any contender. It ended up with four awards: for best picture, outstanding British film, adapted screenplay and editing.
Accepting the second of those, Berger – who swept the board at the awards two years ago with his remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, which won seven prizes – said: “We live in a time of a crisis of democracy. Institutions used to bringing us together are used to pull us apart. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith, and that’s why we make movies.”
Berger, whose film depicts a battle between liberals and traditionalists that threatens to destroy the Catholic church from within, ended his speech by quoting Leonard Cohen: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s epic drama about a Hungarian modernist architect working in post-war America, went home with best director, leading actor, cinematography and score. In his speech, star Adrien Brody, who recently appeared on the West End stage in The Fear of 13, thanked the British public for “embracing me and my creative endeavours”, saying “England has felt quite a lot like home lately”.
He then went on to thank his partner, designer Georgina Chapman (who is also the ex-wife of Harvey Weinstein), calling her an “angel” and adding: “If it wasn’t for you and for my wonderful parents I wouldn’t be here.”
Brody fought off competition from Timothée Chalamet, the star of Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown – which went home empty-handed – and from seven-time Bafta nominee (and one-time winner) Fiennes.
But there was a surprise in the best actress category, as Anora’s Mikey Madison – who was also beaten by David Jonsson to the rising star award on Sunday – took the prize over frontrunner Demi Moore for The Substance and much-loved Hard Truths star Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
In Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner, which also won best casting, Madison plays an exotic dancer who begins a romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. On the podium she gave a shout-out to the “sex worker community”, saying: “I see you, you deserve respect and human decency. I will always be a friend and an ally and I implore others to do the same.”
Meanwhile, Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard’s musical about a Mexican cartel leader who transitions while escaping the mob, took two awards (from 11 nominations) despite the ongoing fallout from offensive unearthed social media posts from its star, Karla Sofía Gascón.
Gascón has taken a vow of media silence since tweets surfaced three weeks ago in which she aired Islamophobic and racist views. She apologised repeatedly, including on a tearful hour-long interview on Spanish TV, but was shunned by many of her colleagues on the film, including her director, who 10 days ago said: “I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to.”
Yet Audiard, whose film is up for a record-breaking 13 awards at the Oscars, appeared on Sunday to extend an olive branch to Gascón in his acceptance speech for best film not in the English language, dedicating it to the “wonderful artists” from the film who were present in the room, before adding “also you, my dear Karla Sofía, who I kiss”.
Accepting the supporting actress award for the film, Zoe Saldaña echoed Audiard, crediting Gascón in her speech, before going on to tearfully thank her mother “for being such a selfless person” and her husband: “you are God’s favourite and I hate it – you are so beautiful.”
Saldaña has won all the supporting actress awards so far handed out this season and is now considered a lock for the Oscars in a fortnight. Likewise A Real Pain’s Kieran Culkin solidified his status as the inevitable winner of the supporting actor Oscar with a Bafta win for his performance as Jesse Eisenberg’s erratic cousin on a tour of Jewish history in Poland in A Real Pain.
Eisenberg picked up the prize on Culkin’s absence – it was, he said, the fifth such award he’d collected for his co-star, “which just confirms my theory that we have a similar life but his is about 27% better than mine”.
The Succession star wasn’t present, Eisenberg said, because he wanted to be with a family member who is “quite sick” – an impulse to be with his family no matter what that, continued Eisenberg, had meant Culkin tried to drop out of A Real Pain two weeks before the shoot.“It’s real and it’s beautiful and it’s admirable,” he said. “Kieran is one of these lovely people who’s brilliantly talented but by some random luck of the cosmos has his priorities in order.”
