According to the Bafta nominations, it has been yet another glorious year for British cinema. Every blue- ribbon category is generously stocked with local heroes. Three of the top five Best Actors and Actresses are Brits. The Queen, The Last King of Scotland and Casino Royale are indeed films to crow about. But I’ve always been suspicious of this lopsided hit parade. Let us not kid ourselves. The Baftas are one of the last warm-up acts before the only global awards that truly matter, namely the Oscars. Frankly, it was ever thus. Until the British Academy moved their awards ceremony “at staggering expense” to pre-empt Oscar night, almost no one took the blindest bit of notice of the Baftas. They might as well have been announced and handed out in Siberia.

Now the winners have two slim and frantic weeks to enjoy their Bafta success before they are eclipsed. Is it any wonder that the British Academy labours under such a giant inferiority complex? Or why it is so snobbish about its awards? It certainly explains why the nominations are shamelessly stacked in our backslapping favour. Even more irritating is the academy’s decision to place the cut-off date for the qualifying nominees at the end of November 2006. At a single stroke it has managed to exclude two of the most talked-about Oscar contenders this year, namely Clint Eastwood’s brace of war films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. They have also blithely ignored the fact that Hollywood traditionally releases half a dozen hot Oscar contenders in December and January.

The arrogance of the British Academy makes a nonsense of the idea that the Baftas are a rigorous assessment of every prize-worthy release in the last 12 months. That’s not to say the Baftas don’t have kudos or value. They are still the biggest prizes on this side of the Pond, and there’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of favouritism when there are performances such as those of Dame Helen Mirren and Dame Judi Dench to cherish. But I fear that these chest-beating awards will always be woefully out of step with the Oscars and the rest of the award season until the British Academy decides to synchronise its calendar with the rest of the film world. The venerable institution needs to do it sooner rather than later if it doesn’t want to spend every February looking like the proverbial ass.

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