Triumph of the thriller

Three Billboards wins, women make waves at the BAFTA awards

The ferocious female-led tragi-comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was the big winner at the British Academy Film Awards in London, where women demanding an end to harassment, abuse and inequality dominated the ceremony.

Martin McDonagh’s film about a bereaved mother seeking justice won five trophies Sunday including best film, outstanding British film and best actress, for Frances McDormand.

Producer Graham Broadbent said the movie is “the story of a woman taking on the establishment and status quo.”

“It seems more timely now than we could ever have imagined,” he said.

Writer-director McDonagh said it was fitting, in the year of the Time’s Up campaign against sexual harassment, that Three Billboards is “a film about a woman who refuses to take any s*** anymore.”

“Our film is a hopeful one in lots of ways, but it’s also an angry one,” McDonagh said. “As we’ve seen this year, sometimes anger is the only way to get people to listen and to change.”

McDonagh won the original screenplay prize for Three Billboards, which also netted Sam Rockwell the supporting actor trophy. Allison Janney was named best supporting actress for playing ice skater Tonya Harding’s domineering mother in I, Tonya.

Guillermo del Toro won the directing prize for the monster fantasy The Shape of Water, which also took trophies for music and production design.

Gary Oldman, the favorite among bookies, won the best actor prize for playing wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

The film awards season in the US and elsewhere has been overshadowed by the allegations of sexual harassment and abuse leveled at scores of entertainment figures since women began coming forward to accuse Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein last year.

London’s Old Vic Theatre has been rocked by allegations against former artistic director Kevin Spacey. London police are also investigating nine claims of sexual assault by Weinstein.

The red carpet and the auditorium at London’s Royal Albert Hall were a sea of black, as actresses such as Lupita Nyong’o, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie eschewed colour as a statement against sexual misconduct and gender inequality.

Several actresses brought feminist activists as guests, and men showed solidarity with Time’s Up lapel pins.

On the red carpet, actress Andrea Riseborough, who brought UK Black Pride founder Phyll Opoku-Gyimah as her guest, said she also hoped the film industry was on the road to greater equality and diversity.