Bafta defends nomination of only one woman for best director as CEO praises diversity of 2023 awards

Bafta CEO Jane Millichip has praised the ‘diversity’ of this year’s Bafta nominations as Executive Director of Awards and Content Emma Baehr defends just one woman being in the running for best director.

Millichip, who was made CEO of the prestigious arts charity, proudly announced the 2023 Bafta nominations on Thursday paying tribute to the ‘full spectrum of craft and creativity that go into filmmaking.’

The 2023 nominations include plenty of first-time nominees, including Colin Farrell for Banshees of Inisherin, Ana De Armas for Blonde, Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Paul Mescal for Aftersun.

It also marks a record-equalising offer from All Quiet on the Western Front, which has tied with 2001’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for the most nominations received by a non-English language film at 14.

The best director category sees six filmmakers hoping to win the coveted gong: Martin McDonagh for Banshees of Inisherin, Park Chan-wook for Decision to Leave, Todd Field for Tár, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Edward Berger for All Quiet on the Western Front, and Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Woman King.

Prince-Bythewood is the only female director nominated in the category, and speaking to Metro.co.uk as the nominations were announced, Executive Director Baehr addressed this head-on as she spoke about how female directors were represented in multiple other areas of the nominations.

‘I think it’s worth noting in the director’s category, that although there’s only one female there, across all categories there are 11 female directors nominated today,’ she said.

‘Whether that’s in animated film, film not in the English language, the debut categories etcetera, we are seeing female directors nominated across those categories.’

Bafta head Millichip agreed, saying the 2023 event has been ‘a great year for diversity and breadth of nominations.’

‘We’re really pleased from that perspective. Our voting is done by our members and there are 7,500 voting members at Bafta – so all of our awards are peer recognition, which is really important.’

She went on: ‘And we’re really pleased that in our performance categories, 40% of our nominees are ethnically diverse, and a good representation in age as well.

‘Breadth and depth is really important this year, I think.’

The 2023 director category does mark a step down in recent years, as women made up half the nominees last year, and outnumbered men four to two in 2021.

It comes after the awards faced backlash in 2019 when no women were nominated for the director category, which so far has seen only three female winners over its 75-ceremony history: Kathryn Bigelow in 2010, Chloe Zhao in 2021 and Jane Campion in 2022.

In 2020, previous Bafta CEO Amanda Berry apologised as not one person of colour was nominated in any of the male or female acting categories, with 18 white stars up for best actor, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress.

And the 2023 Brit awards are currently under fire as no women are nominated in the prestigious artist of the year category, with five male artists competing against each other for the gong.

In reference to the diversity of the narrative and genres at this year’s Baftas, Millichip mused: ‘It’s interesting, just in the best film category what you have are big, commercial blockbusters like Elvis with nine nominations across the categories, then a German anti-war film in All Quiet.

‘Banshees is an intimate period film, a portrait of friendship, then there’s an abuse of power story through Tár – there’s a real blend and variety in narrative styles even in that best film category, including a good mix of commercial and indie. I think it’s a strong year for breadth of voice, breadth of tone.’

A total of 45 films were nominated across different categories, from Guillermo Del Toro’s animated masterpiece Pinnochio to Irish language tearjerker An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl).

And incredibly, of the 24 actors nominated for a Bafta Film award for their work in 2022, a whopping 14 of them are first-time nominees, having never been tipped before.

The full list of nominations comes after Sheila Atim, Naomi Ackie, Daryl McCormack, Emma Mackey and Aimee Lou Wood were announced as the nominees for the EE rising star award, the only award voted for by the public.

The Bafta Film Awards 2023 will air on BBC One on Sunday, February 19 from 7pm

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