The film 'The Revenant' came out a big winner at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) film awards, on Sunday night, winning five awards.
'The Revenant' was named top film and garnered awards for Alejandro G Inarritu who was named best director and Leonardo Dicaprio as best actor. It also led the awards for cinematography and sound.
The film is about a man's survival alone in a wilderness, and its production was dogged by problems for the production crew because of the harsh venues used for filming.
Inarritu said at a press conference after the awards, "We all went through physical challenges; for me, the most difficult challenge was that I wanted people to experience feeling lost through sight and sound -- and not through words, but images. Besides the production problems, when I was putting the material together there was a moment when I (myself) began to feel lost."
Dicaprio said, "I often refer to this journey as a journey to the 'Heart of Darkness' because there was something very early on in Alejandro's eyes that showed he wanted to submerge himself in another world, but he did not have quite all the answers to what the movie would be. But he knew that with us being completely entrenched in those existential conditions we would come up with existential answers."
The BAFTA awards, which were held at the Royal Opera House in the center of London, are often seen as one of the indicators towards possible success at the Hollywood Oscars at the end of this month.
Kate Winslet won the best supporting actress, her second win in the category after a gap of 20 years. She commented afterwards, "I was even more excited than I was 20 years ago when I was in this position for 'Sense and Sensibility'."
Mark Rylance won best supporting actor for 'Bridge of Spies'.
Naji Abu Nowar, writer and director, and Rupert Lloyd, producer won the outstanding debut award for 'Theeb'. Nowar described the film to Xinhua before his win as "a Bedouin Western, a coming of age at the time of the Great Arab Revolt (1916)".
Nowar said that he had lived with the Bedouin tribe for a year and added "they are the co-authors of the film".
'Amy' won best documentary, and 'The Hurtful Eight' won best original music.
'Mad Max: Fury Road' was another film that won heavily on the night, winning four awards -- for makeup and hair, editing, costume and production design -- but none of the high-profile awards.
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