Jane Campion placed to make Oscars history after BAFTA nominations

Sydney-based film director Jane Campion’s odds of making Oscars history have firmed dramatically after her western, The Power of the Dog, was nominated for eight BAFTAs.

Director Jane Campion.

Sydney-based film director Jane Campion’s odds of making Oscars history have firmed dramatically after her revisionist western, The Power of the Dog, was nominated for eight British Academy Film Awards.

An Australian-British production, The Power of the Dog scored BAFTA nominations in powerhouse categories including best film and best director. This comes on top of the film winning the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for best director, and three Golden Globe wins, ­including in the best director and best drama film categories.

If, as widely predicted, Campion is nominated for best director when the Academy Award nominations are announced on Wednesday (Australian time), she will become the first woman to earn two nods in that category. The New Zealander, who trained at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and is a long-time Sydney resident, was nominated for a directing Oscar for 1993’s The Piano.

The Power of the Dog stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons and Australia’s Kodi Smit-McPhee, and is credited with reinventing the western through its depiction of a sexually repressed rancher (Cumberbatch) who resents his brother’s sudden marriage to a widow played by Kirsten Dunst.

Sci-fi blockbuster Dune, starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, leads the BAFTAs tally with 11 nominations, including best film and cinematography. Among the cinematography nominees are two Australians – The Power of the Dog’s Ari ­Wegner and Dune’s Greig Fraser, who will battle it out alongside cinematographers from the Bond blockbuster No Time to Die, Nightmare Alley and The ­Tragedy of Macbeth.

Along with Dune and The Power of the Dog, the contenders for the BAFTA best film accolade are Belfast, Don’t Look Up and Licorice Pizza. The BAFTA winners will be revealed on March 11.