There were BAFTA wins for ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ which took away Best Animated Film and ‘I, Daniel Blake’ which won Outstanding British Film at the British Film Academy awards which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 12th February.
The award-winning stop motion animation ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ features Moville Actor Art Parkinson ‘Game of Thrones’ as the main voice lead of ‘Kubo’. And the Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan ‘Philomena’ worked on ‘I, Daniel Blake’ directed by Ken Loach.
In a backstage interview at the BAFTA’s ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ director and Laika CEO Travis Knight, was congratulated for his award by presenter Zoe Ball who remarked that the animation had been the longest stop motion feature ever made and also happened to be Knight’s first debut as a director. Travis said: “It’s remarkable. We [Laika] are a little independent animation house and we worked on this film for over 5 years. So for the film to come out and gets this reaction is extraordinary. To be even considered as one of the top flight story tellers in film is an amazing honour. Then to walk home with this is pretty surreal.”
Other winners on the night included ‘La La Land’ which took away Best Film and also won an award for Cinematography. The Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey nominated for his work on ‘Nocturnal Animals’ alongside ‘Arrival’, ‘Hell or High Water’ and ‘Lion’ lost out to Linus Sandgreen ‘La La Land’ in that category.
Irish costume designer Consolata Boyle who was nominated for best Costume Design for her work on Stephen Frears ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ unfortunately lost out to ‘Jackie’ costume designer Madeline Fontaine.
With the Oscars awards up next on February 26th in LA, we again look forward to seeing more Irish talent nominated within the film industry: Consolata Boyle is up for best costume design for her work on 'Florence Foster Jenkins', Ruth Negga is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role nomination for 'Loving'. ‘The Lobster' featuring Colin Farrell is nominated for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) and ‘Kubo and The Two Strings’ is nominated for Best Animated Feature Film alongside 'Moana', 'My Life As A Courgette', 'The Red Turtle' & 'Zootopia'.
For a full list of the BAFTA 2017 Award winners click here.