Feb 12, 2019

BAFTA winner: "Spider-Verse", "Black Panther", "Roughhouse" won

On Sunday evening, the British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs, announced its winners during a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, and Rodney Rothman's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse received the Best Animated Film competing against fellow Oscar-nominees Isle of Dogs and Incredible 2. With its latest win, Spider-Verse appears to be unstoppable on its path to becoming the first non-Disney production to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar since Paramount's Rango scooped the award 2012.

Sony Pictures Animation's box office and critical smash most recently picked up a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature and won all seven Annie Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production. To say Spider-Verse is the frontrunner to take home the Academy Awards is an understatement, but still, one must never underestimate the power of the Disney machine.

On the animated short front, there was no overlap between the nominees at the BAFTAs and the Oscars. The British Academy's three contenders were all hand-drawn and displayed thematic similarities of a more adult-oriented kind.

Jonathan Hodgson's Roughhouse won the honor, succeeding against Marfa, directed by Greg McLeod and Myles McLeod, and I'm OK, directed by Elizabeth Hobbs. Hodgson's film is a semi-autobiographical portrait of bullying among young students in 1970s Liverpool. This is the seasoned animator's second BAFTA win; he was previously honored in 2000 for his short The Man with the Beautiful Eyes.

The award for special visual effects went to Black Panther, which represents an interesting twist since Marvel's Africa-inspired epic didn't receive a nomination in the same category at the Oscars, despite receiving a Best Picture nod. Ryan Coogler's feature won the BAFTA beating out current Oscar nominees Avengers: Infinity War, First Man, and Ready Player, as well as Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

(Pictured at top, l to r: “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Black Panther,” “Roughhouse”)