BAFTA winners backstage: Actress Samantha Morton plus ’20 Days in Mariupol’ and ‘The Zone of Interest’ filmmakers
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BAFTA celebrated a wonderful ceremony this year at the Royal Festival Hall over here in London, with Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” the biggest champion of the evening. That movie took home seven BAFTA masks including Best Picture but it wasn’t the only film to have a big night.
“Poor Things” won five BAFTAs in total, “The Zone of Interest” took home three awards, and Samantha Morton was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship by presenter David Heyman. While not all of the winners made their way down to the Winners Press Conference Room, the majority did. There, the filmmakers and stars chatted away about their victories and projects with us journalists. Here’s a selection of some of the best moments.
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Morton gave an emotional speech while accepting the BAFTA Fellowship award but by the time she was with us journalists in the Winners Press Conference Room, she was merrily recounting how she first found out she’d be receiving the prestigious award.
“I thought it was a mistake. I’d gone to see ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ at the Barbican with my kids. It was really emotional anyway and I love that film and the production was amazing,” Morton said. “They went off to get some ice cream at the interval and we’re all addicted to our phones, aren’t we? So I was checking my phone and it was there, oh my god. I thought it was a mistake. I was sobbing on my own [in the theatre] as if I’d have some really bad news.”
However, while Morton was happy to joke about that instance, she also touched upon some serious subjects including the need for greater funding in the British film industry and the support kids in foster homes need and deserve. This followed some more somber moments in the Winners Press Conference Room over the course of the night, the most powerful of which came from Mstyslav Chernov, who won Best Documentary with Raney Aronson-Rath for “20 Days in Mariupol.” Chernov explained that while it is a “huge honor” and “huge responsibility” to be rewarded like this, he also feels “conflicted” when there are far more serious events at hand.
“We are so grateful for them recognizing our work. But still, I keep thinking about Ukraine, I keep thinking about what is happening there right now. And the only comfort for me that I’m not filming out there is that we give voice to Ukrainians, we keep reminding the world about what is happening right now. Another city just got occupied by Russia so it is more important than ever to be here and keep talking about this. I hope the world never forgets this but we have to keep reminding everyone,” Chernov said.
“I am already really grateful that we also made it into the Film Not in the English Language category to be more visible to people who are less interested in documentaries. So it’s great that documentaries are able to compete in some other categories,” Chernov said. “That’s a great example for Ukraine right now. It chooses documentary to represent the country. I think it depends on what is happening and what is the situation in every single country. Sometimes, documentaries are the best medium to talk about certain issues, and certainly, documentaries are the best ones right now. I don’t see it as a restriction, I see it as the right time. I’m really grateful for the exposure.”
Chernov and “20 Days in Mariupol” lost Best Film Not in the English Language to A24’s “The Zone of Interest,” which Chernov himself name-checked as a sort of sister movie to their own.
“‘The Zone of Interest’ is a film this year that we feel really connected to. We speak about the devastating impact of war on the civilian population. But it’s not just about storytelling, it’s more of a symbol that we are trying to carry,” Chernov said. “That attempt to make the message more universal is actually specifically directed to fight against selective empathy because we talk about not just about people in Mariupol and not just about what happened in death camps but about humanity. It’s a fight for survival. It’s a wish for the world to be a better place for all of us.”
“The Zone of Interest” also won Best British Film (with director Jonathan Glazer and producers James Wilson and Ewa Puszczyńska the recipients) and Best Sound (Johnnie Burn and Tarn Willers). Burn explained why the film’s sound has caught so much attention.
“It’s two films. You’re hearing the soundscape of a beautiful urban life with a family with their dog and their children and you’re hearing that in the complexities of the house and all the scenes that happen simultaneously. Juxtaposed against that is a horror scape of an alternative film that is the most violent film I’ve ever worked on.”
Willers added: “When I first met Jonathan, he said to me, ‘We’re going to shoot this film with 10 cameras, they’re going to roll all the time, there will be no mark, the actors will be able to move around and improvise as much as they want. I want to see everything. How are you going to get the sound?’ That was my introduction to Jonathan.”
He continued: “So we mic’d the house and we mic’d the garden as well as mic-ing the actors. He gave us the freedom to make whichever decisions we needed to make. And he trusted us to make those decisions in order to get a few colors in the palette for Jonathan to work with later.”
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