All Quiet on the Western Front sweeps Baftas as Banshees also gets an Oscar boost

Revisionist German war drama All Quiet on the Western Front has swept the board at the British Academy Film Awards in London, taking a remarkable seven awards, including best picture and best director for Edward Berger.

Picking up his best director prize, Berger asked the audience to remember the people of Ukraine ahead of the one-year anniversary of the start of the war with Russia.

This commotion meant the ceremony kicked off with an unexpected echo of the climax of 2017 Academy Awards, when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty incorrectly named La La Land best picture, before eventually correcting it to Moonlight.

Grant was briefly overcome while introducing the in memoriam section of the show; he lost his wife, the dialect coach, Joan Washington, in 2021. Stars and film-makers remembered this year included Hugh Hudson, Angela Lansbury, Raquel Welch, Jean-Luc Godard, Leslie Phillips, Ray Liotta, Anne Heche, Sylvia Syms and Robbie Coltrane.