TWELVE months on from controversy over a depressing shortlist dominated by Neds and The Scheme, comedy is set to claim top honours at this year’s Scottish Baftas.
Whisky caper The Angels’ Share, which was the toast of the Cannes Film Festival this year, has secured nominations for writer Paul Laverty and two of its stars, Paul Brannigan and Siobhan Reilly.
Despite a number of dark scenes involving its key characters, the mainly Glasgow-set film has won plaudits for its humour and optimistic portrayal of a group of youngsters turning their lives around thanks to their whisky-buff mentor.
The heist drama, which won the prestigious “jury prize” at Cannes, was later given a gala premiere in Glasgow, which will be hosting the Baftas ceremony next month.
Rab C Nesbitt stars Gregor Fisher and Elaine C Smith will go up against each other in the best TV actor category, while Kevin Bridges is nominated in two separate categories, best writer, where he will be competing against Laverty, and best entertainment programme.
A controversial BBC Scotland drama investigation into Rangers Football Club, which exposed the scale of financial wrongdoing at the club, is in the running for best current affairs programme. A BBC documentary into the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland is shortlisted in a separate category, for best documentary.
However, there is no place for the documentary film You’ve Been Trumped, which has won a string of international film festival awards and has only just had a TV screening, while Disney- Pixar’s animated fantasy Brave was not considered a “Scottish” production, despite a string of home-grown actors giving voice to the film’s characters.
However, despite not fitting the criteria for the Scottish Baftas, it is understood that Brave will receive some form of special honour on the night.
Ken Loach, the director of The Angels’ Share, who has made a string of hit films in Scotland, is also unable to be recognised at the event because he was born south of the Border.
The annual “lifetime achievement award” for an outstanding contribution to the industry will be announced in the run-up to the ceremony. Robbie Coltrane was honoured last year.
Broadcaster Edith Bowman will present the awards, which are now an annual fixture, after the 2010 event was shelved unexpectedly.
Actor and director Peter Mullan picked up two awards for Neds, which focused on a troubled teenager growing up in 1970s Scotland, at last year’s ceremony.
The Scheme, which followed the lives of six families on an Ayrshire housing scheme, was named best factual series.
Jude MacLaverty, director of Bafta in Scotland, insisted there had been no conscious decision to ensure a more light-hearted shortlist of candidates this year.
She said: “It’s just the way the judging process has gone. We have very strict criteria for entry, including actors and directors having been born in Scotland, and so much of a production must have been based in Scotland.”
And the nominees are...
ACTOR/ACTRESS FILM
Paul Brannigan: The Angels’ Share
James Cosmo: Citadel
Siobhan Reilly: The Angels’ Share
ACTOR/ACTRESS - TELEVISION
Iain De Caestecker: Young James Herriot
Gregor Fisher: Rab C Nesbitt
Elaine C Smith: Rab C Nesbitt
ANIMATION
All That Glisters: Claire Lamond
I Am Tom Moody: Ainslie Henderson
The Making Of Longbird: Will Anderson
COMEDY/ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME
Kevin Bridges: What’s The Story?
Mrs Brown’s Boys
Sweet Dreams – Sgeulachd Patsy Cline
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Eòrpa
Rangers – The Men Who Sold The Jerseys
Travellers
DIRECTOR
Mark Cousins: What is This Film Called Love?
Michael Keillor: Young James Herriot
Zam Salim: Up There
FACTUAL SERIES
Afghanistan: The Great Game, A Personal View By Rory Stewart
The Last Explorers: Livingstone
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
FEATURES/FACTUAL ENTERTAINMENT
Antiques Road Trip
Bank of Dave
Robson’s Extreme Fishing Challenge
FEATURE FILM
The Angels’ Share
Citadel
Up There
GAME
Bad Hotel
Golf Squared
iBomber Defense Pacific
SINGLE DOCUMENTARY
Afterlife: The Strange Science of Decay
A Life Through The Lens: David Peat
RBS: Inside The Bank That Ran Out of Money
WRITER
Kevin Bridges: Kevin Bridges: What’s The Story?
Louise Ironside: Lip Service
Paul Laverty: The Angels’ Share