The 70th British Academy Film Awards, and for sponsorship reasons the EE British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, will be held on 12 February 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, to honour the best British and international contributions to film in 2016. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), accolades are handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality screened at British cinemas in 2016.
The nominees were announced on 10 January 2017 by actor Dominic Cooper and actress Sophie Turner, La La Land had the most nominations in eleven categories including the top four categories of best film, best actor and actress in a lead role and best director. Arrival and Nocturnal Animals followed with nine nominations each.
The leading British films were Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake and the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with five nominations apiece.
Following criticism at the lack of representation of ethnic minorities in the 2016 awards, BAFTA had announced steps to increase diversity across the industry, on both sides of the camera. However there was again criticism at the lack of representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) actors, directors and films in the nominations. In the leading actor, actress and director fields there were no BAME nominees, with the omission of directors Barry Jenkins for Moonlight and Denzel Washington for Fences highlighted as particularly noteworthy.
