BAFTA Film Awards: Delving Into The Nitty Gritty

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What goes into a world renowned awards ceremony?

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BAFTA Film Awards: Delving Into The Nitty Gritty

Just under a month to go until the BAFTA Film Awards return to the Southbank Centre to commend the brightest stars of the industry this year, from big name directors to burgeoning new actors. But all of the planning started years ago. ‘We’re thinking about next year and the year after,’ shares Emma Baehr, BAFTA’s executive director of awards and content. ‘We think about all of the rules and processes really early on.’

So what goes into the BAFTA Film Awards? We sat down with Emma to learn all about the process, from the very start to the nominations to the glittering finish line.

Who Votes For The BAFTA Film Awards?

The BAFTA Film Awards are voted for by 8,100 of BAFTA’s Film members; in total, there are 13,500 BAFTA members, covering film, games and TV. Members are industry professionals, with more than 50 countries represented. ‘Editors, cinematographers, producers, festival programmers…. You know, the industry!’ says BAFTA’s Emma Baehr. ‘The voting is done by your peers: you’re being celebrated and rewarded by your peers rather than the public [except the Rising Star award]. And we’re in a privileged position at BAFTA, because we have such a rich membership.’

The first round of voting happens in December, and BAFTA voters must view the eligible films on a platform called BAFTA View in order to vote for them. (Before 2021, films were still circulated on DVDs.) Members are put into randomised viewing groups, containing 15 films which they must watch – though many members watch more than just their allocated 15, which BAFTA also encourages. ‘We want to make sure that every single film is watched by a certain number of members to give it the fairness of everything being considered,’ Emma explains. ‘A nice consequence of this is we have heard so many positive stories from people watching films they would normally put off or they might not have wanted to watch originally.’

With the introduction of this new viewing platform, BAFTA can track the activity of its members, meaning ‘now we know that every film is being watched,’ Emma says. ‘We know that things are being considered on artistic merit. And we’ve got four years of data to prove it.’

The first result of this is the longlist, which was announced on 3 January this year. BAFTA Film members vote in categories they are eligible for, whether they’re part of a Chapter made up of members with specialist knowledge in a relevant craft (like make-up, costume or sound) or on a Jury composed of a variety of BAFTA members spanning various roles and experience to provide a diverse outlook on the category. ‘It’s really important for us to celebrate and showcase a breadth of film, so the longlist does that,’ Emma explains. ‘Seeing the long list this year, we can clearly see it’s worked.’ The most striking result in 2025? ‘We’ve got 24 different films in the performance categories. It’s very odd for it to not have overlap!’

The very same day the longlists are revealed, voting recommences, with Chapters and Juries invited to vote once more for their eligible categories. In order to vote in a category, the voter must watch each and every film on the longlist. They have one week to cast their votes, with the official nominations the result of this round. This year, the nominees were revealed on 15 January.

In the final round of voting – Round 3 – all BAFTA Film members are invited to vote in each and every category (except Outstanding Debut and the new-for-2025 award Children’s & Family Film, which are reserved for eligible Chapters and Juries). They will cast their votes between 22 January and 11 February 2025, before the winners are revealed at the awards ceremony on Sunday 16 February 2025.

Who Is Eligible?

There are specific criteria films must meet to be eligible for the BAFTA Film awards. These include:

Films must be available for the first time in UK theatres between 1 January and mid-February the following year (this time, that’s 1 January 2024 to 14 February 2025)
Films must be at least 70 minutes long
Films must be screened in at least 50 commercial theatres in the UK for at least seven consecutive days – though the rules vary for foreign films and documentaries

…And plenty more. ‘We set out our rules and guidelines every year,’ says Emma. ‘They’re about 30 pages long!’

There are also rules to prevent larger films campaigning too heavily for a BAFTA win. ‘In film particularly, we have campaign rules to ensure everything is fair,’ Emma adds. ‘Last year, we brought in a rule book that made the campaigning rules crystal clear, so that there’s no bias towards larger studios and distributors. We need to make sure that smaller budget films, independent films and – since we are the British Academy – the smaller British independent films get a look in.

‘It’s all about levelling the playing field [for smaller films],’ Emma says. ‘We did a massive review in 2020, and we put 124 interventions into our awards, the majority of which were in film. So the Awards team are the keepers of that. Everything they do is all about making sure there’s credibility and robust processes.

‘We’re not here to fix results,’ Emma adds. ‘We’re not here to put in quotas – but we can certainly make sure that everything is considered on artistic merit. We looked at everything from membership to campaigning to the actual film rules. The differences we made in the film rules were things like gender parity at certain stages of the Best Director category, and that remains today.

‘Obviously, we want to be in a world where we don’t need interventions like that,’ Emma says. ‘But it’s still a long time until we get to that point. We have to put in that intervention to ensure that films by women and non binary directors are being considered. Out of all the entries submitted for directing this year, only 24 percent were directed by women.’

Who Decides All The Categories?

When it comes to the different categories of awards, a lot of thought goes into the process. ‘We never take that lightly,’ says Emma. ‘When we introduce a new category, it will take years of planning and thinking. We work with the industry across every single category to make sure we’re always relevant. But we’d never want to introduce a new category that will only last a year, because there’s just no point!’

Speaking of new categories, the 2025 BAFTA Film Awards does in fact have a new category: Children’s & Family Film. ‘We’ve got a great list of nominees,’ says Emma. ‘We spent years talking about that and working with the film committee. We also have a young BAFTA advisory group.

Who Plans The Ceremony?

That would be the Events team – and again, the ball is rolling ‘years in advance,’ Emma says. The team deals with everything from the red carpet to the dinner, the layout of the seating to the look and feel of the ceremony, the table settings to the guest arrival experience. Then there’s the nitty gritty you might not think of: road closures, permissions and risk assessments.

‘It’s quite exciting at this point, because it’s all coming together!’ Emma says. ‘We’re looking at the look and feel. The theme of this year is A Night at the Movies, and this year we’ve got a great walkway between the red carpet and the drinks reception where we’re going to showcase our breakthrough flagship initiative. We’ve got the menu signed off: we work with Cape & Berry, who are a very sustainably conscious company, all about celebrating the countryside and making sure that harvest is as late as possible and seasonal. We’ve got a special dessert which I’m excited for: an edible BAFTA popcorn sundae. And there’s a vegan option!

‘I think my favorite moment of the awards is the morning,’ Emma says. ‘You walk to the Southbank Centre, and the set has been finished overnight. And although you’ve been involved in all of it for so long, it suddenly becomes real. And also, because no one’s around, you get one moment where you can enjoy it just by yourself.’