BRITISH BOOST
BAFTA has unveiled key changes for the 2026 film awards, including strengthened eligibility criteria for Outstanding British Film and refined documentary voting procedures.
The Outstanding British Film category now requires candidates to reach a minimum of 60% of available points, with either the director or writer being British to qualify. Films that reach the threshold without British directors or writers will be considered on appeal.
For documentaries, BAFTA has refined the opt-in chapter profile to ensure round one voting is conducted by members with specific documentary/non-fiction experience, while the full voting membership will select the winner.
In another significant change, full voting members will decide winners of the British Short Film and British Short Animation categories for the first time, raising the profile of these works.
The 79th awards ceremony will take place Feb. 22, 2026, with longlists announced Jan. 9 and nominations Jan. 27. Entries opened August 14.
Anna Higgs, BAFTA film committee chair, said the changes reflect “our ongoing commitment to recognizing excellence and evolving with the industry.”
THEORY TRIUMPH
The BFI will bestow its highest honor, a BFI Fellowship, on influential filmmaker and academic Laura Mulvey on Nov. 4 at BFI Southbank. The recognition celebrates Mulvey’s 50-year career and the 50th anniversary of her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which introduced the groundbreaking concept of the “male gaze.”
“This extraordinary honor moves me deeply, not least because it recognizes film education, an original BFI commitment in 1933, through its first Fellowship to an academic,” said Mulvey, currently honorary professor of film at University of St. Andrews. “My work has always been collective. If my 1975 essay helped transform film studies, it was because the feminist movement was riding a wave of political energy that demanded new ways of seeing.”
BFI chair Jay Hunt praised Mulvey as “a British pioneer and feminist icon” whose ideas “have helped shape cinema and influenced the world.”
The fellowship includes a November-December season at BFI Southbank celebrating her scholarship and collaborative films with Peter Wollen.
variety.com
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