1917: Sam Mendes' war drama wins seven awards at Bafta 2020

1917 Movie Poster

Sam Mendes' 1917 has won seven awards at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), held last evening at the Royal Albert Hall in London including Outstanding British Film and Best Film and Best Director (Sam Mendes).

The World War 1 thriller, which was nominated in 9 categories at BAFTA, also won awards for Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Best Production Design (Dennis Gassner and Lee Sandales), Best Sound (Scott Millan, Oliver Tarney, Rachael Tate, Mark Taylor, and Stuart Wilson) and Special Visual Effects (Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron and Dominic Tuohy).

Sam Mendes, who is the first British winner of the Best Director BAFTA since Danny Boyle's 2009 win for Slumdog Millionaire said, "There's the personal delight in seeing a story very close to me and my family be developed and enlarged but the massive thing has been audiences going in large numbers." He added, "None of us knew if an audience would turn up, it wasn't certain at all. It's coincided with awards season and the fact this is still number one in the UK after four weeks, [the awards have] really alerted people to the fact the movie is on, it rarely happens like that."

Inspired by the stories that Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes' grandfather told him, 1917 has had a dream run this awards season with 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, for the forthcoming 92nd Academy Awards, which is scheduled to be held at 9th February 2020 in Los Angeles.

1917 has previously won three awards at the Critics' Choice Awards 2020 for Best Director, Best Cinematographer and Best Editing. The film also won accolades at the 77th Golden Globes, with an award for Best Picture in the Drama category, and the Best Director's award for Sam Mendes.

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