Post by Taxigirl on Jan 19, 2004 10:32:18 GMT
Jude Law is up for best actor for Cold Mountain
Anthony Minghella's American Civil War epic Cold Mountain has received 13 nominations at this year's Bafta awards, including best film.
Other contenders in the best film category include The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Master and Commander and Lost in Translation.
Cold Mountain has also received a nomination for best British film, along with Love Actually.
British hopes include actor Jude Law and director Anthony Minghella.
Unusually, Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson both scooped two nominations each in the best actor and actress lists.
Penn is nominated for his roles in dramas Mystic River and 21 Grams, and is up against Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp.
Newcomer Scarlett Johansson is nominated for two film roles
Newcomer Johansson is also shortlisted for Girl with a Pearl Earring and Lost in Translation.
Multiple nominations for actresses or actors has happened only three times before. Anthony Hopkins, Miranda Richardson and Geoffrey Rush all received nominations for two films in the same year.
Also up for best actress are Anne Reid for The Mother, Naomi Watts for 21 Grams and Uma Thurman for Kill Bill.
MOST-NOMINATED FILMS
Cold Mountain - 13
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - 12
Girl With a Pearl Earring - 10
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - 8
Lost in Translation - 8
Big Fish - 7
Best director nominees include Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation and Peter Weir for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Love Actually, which has an ensemble cast including Hugh Grant and Keira Knightley, received three nominations, including best supporting actor for Bill Nighy, but was expected to do better.
Other British hopefuls at this year's event include Sir Ian McKellen and Paul Bettany with best supporting actor nominations, and Emma Thompson in the best supporting actress category.
The Return of the King is just one nomination behind Cold Mountain's tally, but the majority of its nominations are in technical categories, mirroring the Bafta recognition for the other two films in Peter Jackson's trilogy.
The Bafta awards have been taken increasingly seriously by Hollywood since its ceremony date was moved in 2001 so they took place before the Oscars rather than afterwards.
They now attract some of the biggest names in the movie world, and Roman Polanski's Holocaust drama The Pianist was the main winner last year.
Bafta film committee chairman and Love Actually producer Duncan Kenworthy said it was "too early to say" whether the awards have been affected by the US ban on sending DVDs of films to voters. This was due to piracy fears, although the ban was overturned by a US judge in December.
But Mr Kenworthy added: "We are on record as having said we thought the ban was ill-conceived, it was introduced at the wrong time, it was much too late for people to prepare for it."