I have spent more than a few Features focusing on the sometimes unusual behaviour of AMPAS - the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the collective of film-makers responsible for picking the Oscar winners. However, this time I'm going to have a look at something closer to home - the British Academy of Film and Television Arts - or BAFTA for short. As you'll most likely know, BAFTA present their own awards a few weeks before the Oscars; in fact, I write this just over a week before this year's ceremony on February 8th. And what I want to talk about specifically is how their awards have, as a result of their groveling attitude towards Hollywood and the film industry, turned into something of an irrelevance.

Now, I'm not talking about the prestigiousness of the awards, as that remains very much intact. The pecking order for awards has tended to be seen as Oscar > BAFTA > SAG (for actors) > Golden Globe, though the way the latter is hyped up every year always amazes me. Not that many people seem to realise that Golden Globes are not industry awards - the winners are picked by about 60-70 film critics, not the film-makers' peers. But before I go off on a tangent, I think it suffices to say that for most film-makers, winning a BAFTA is generally only considered second to winning an Oscar. What I am talking about, however, is the fact that an uncomfortably large number of films that win BAFTAs each year have absolutely no right to be picking up the famous trophies.

My reasoning for this is simply a matter of logic. The BAFTAs that are to be presented this year are, as with the Oscars, supposed to go to the best films of last year. That's why it's easy to get confused about the dates of film awards; the 2007 Best Picture Oscar was presented in 2008, and so on. And, when you read the rules of both BAFTA and AMPAS, you can see that this is very clear. I'm not sure how long those rules will remain online - since they'll have to be updated for next year - but I'll link to them for the moment. To begin with, let's take a look at the very basic rules for both bodies. First of all, BAFTA's rules state on page 3:

"Films must be released theatrically in the UK, within the Academy awards year: 1 January to 31 December 2008."

Seems pretty clear, doesn't it? And AMPAS has the identical rule on page 4:

"The required Los Angeles County qualifying run... must open between January 1, 2008 and midnight of December 31, 2008."

For clarification purposes their 'qualifying run' has to meet certain conditions - such as playing in Los Angeles County - but the film still has to have its theatrical release during 2008. And just to prove that point, their rules even go into detail about films that open under different situations:

"A picture theatrically exhibited inside the U.S. prior to the Los Angeles qualifying run shall be eligible for submission provided the prior exhibition takes place in a commercial motion picture theater after January 1, 2007, and that no other form of public exhibition occurs through the completion of its Los Angeles run..."

"A picture first theatrically exhibited outside the U.S. prior to the Los Angeles qualifying run shall be eligible for submission provided the prior exhibition takes place in a commercial motion picture theater after January 1, 2007..."

These rules are a bit wordy, but you'll notice that they still require the Los Angles County run and, if you read them closely, it's clear that this run still has to take place within 2008. There is some leeway for film-makers here, but the bottom line is that to be considered for an Oscar, a film has to have a reasonable run in Los Angles County during the year for which it wants to be considered. Contrast this with this rule from BAFTA:

"Films that open between 1 January and 6 February 2009 inclusive may be ‘qualified’ by Distributors by being screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Thursday 18 December 2008."

So, in fact, films that don't open in theatrically in the right year - and it's worth noting that AMPAS's rules insist on the Los Angeles County Run being public - can be considered for BAFTAS if the studios send free DVDs to the voters.

I find this unacceptable for two connected reasons. The first is the one I have already hinted at; that this devalues the BAFTAs themselves. It's no secret that one of the most important things during this time of year is the momentum films can build as a result of wins and nominations. And what better way for a film to impress itself onto the minds of voters than by walking away with a truckload of BAFTAs? This year the Oscar voting ballots need to be in by the 17th February - a full 9 days after the BAFTA winners have already been announced. You want momentum; how about the second biggest film award in the world going to your film a week before the voting deadline for the biggest? So by permitting films that aren't yet available to the general public, BAFTA just plays into Hollywood's hands and lets their awards be used for stimulating momentum.

And the other side of this, which is arguably more important, is that it's massively unfair to the millions of people in Britain who go to the cinema every year. In some cases it can result in films winning that actually haven't come out yet. Just as an example, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Best Actor BAFTA last year - for There Will Be Blood - nearly a full week before the film reached cinemas. Nobody except a few critics and the BAFTA members had been able to see the film, and there he was walking away with an award for it. I'm not disputing that he deserved it; what I am disputing is the year in which he was considered. But even if British audiences have had a chance to see the films, they aren't often given much time to digest them or think about them. This year all five Best Film nominees at the BAFTAs came out in 2009; in fact, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will be released two days before the ceremony. How many people will have seen all five of them by then?

The silly thing about all this is that BAFTA are missing a trick. First of all, if they limited the films that could be considered to ones that were actually released in the right year, I'd bet money more people would watch the ceremony. After all, how many people watch award programmes like that without really seeing that many of the nominees? And more people watching can only be good for BAFTA's world status. The other thing is this; I'm sure it would help us get the films earlier. Things are better than they used to be; I remember films taking many, many months to get over here from America, and now that gap is certainly smaller. But there's still a gap there, and I'm reasonably confident that studios would bite the bullet and go for an earlier release date in Britain if not doing so meant they got left out of the BAFTAs and sank into January oblivion. I'm not necessarily talking about doing it in the same week, but opening films here sooner than usual wouldn't be too hard from a logistical point of view. The sooner BAFTA release the attractiveness of ceasing to pander to the big studios, and of doing something positive for British cinema-goers, the better.

© David Mercier
Discuss films and features on the FilmJudge Blog