No diversity in ‘white’ BAFTA Awards?

Tuesday 21st February 2023 07:07 EST
 
 

The BAFTA Awards that took place in London on Sunday have been accused of being coloured white by critics this year. The prestigious British event had a diverse set of nominees, with people belonging to ethnic minorities taking almost 40% of acting to shortlist slots. But that did not translate into wins, with the 49 victors across all categories being white. It comes three years after an outcry and subsequent reforms when all 20 acting nominees were white, the BBC reported.

 

Film and TV critic and Bafta short film jury member Ashanti Omkar tweeted, “Disappointed!! I've felt this deep pain in the pit of my stomach of late, as I'm seeing the #film industry behind the scenes and the supremacy that it flaunts in my face so much, day by day, so it's not a surprising result, but in 2023, it is deeply regressive and uncalled for.” In a rare example, the actor/filmmaker James Krishna Floyd tweeted, “My mum travelled by car from India to UK. Last night her youngest son went to @BAFTA’s w a nominated film he’s in that celebrates refugees.”

India’s Shaunak Sen who was nominated for his documentary film ‘All That Breathes’ did not win. In an analysis by Andrew Pulver titled ‘Is Bafta’s work to increase diversity in danger of being undone?’ in The Guardian, he wrote, “Furthermore, a wider concern is that the British Asian population of the UK is particularly badly served by Bafta, and the British film industry in general: the 2021 census identified 9.3% (around 5.5 million people) identifying as “Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh” – whose only representative in the main prizes this year is director Sally El-Hosaini, whose film The Swimmers was one of 10 up for best British film. It can’t be a great situation when nearly 10% of the population is practically invisible at the nation’s film awards.”


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