Baftas 2018 nominations feature nods for Loving Vincent and Have Heart, a film about a gif

The Bafta 2018 film award nominations have been unveiled, featuring nods for entirely oil-painted animation Loving Vincent and Have Heart, a film about a looping gif having an existential crisis.

There are just three nominees for best animated feature film, including the painted van Gogh tribute, My Life as a Courgette – the French stop motion film directed by director, illustrator and ECAL grad Claude Barras – and Pixar’s Coco.

Best British short animation nominees include Will Anderson’s inventive film Have Heart; the Scottish director previously won a Bafta for his first short The Making of Longbird. Also shortlisted are Ben Steer’s Mamoon and Poles Apart, a 12-minute stop motion by Paloma Baeza starring Helena Bonham Carter as a polar bear.

The best costume design nominations feature multiple nominees Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water alongside Beauty and the Beast, I, Tonya and Phantom Thread. Best British short film nominees include Aamir, Vika Evdokimenko’s film about a European refugee, and Aneil Karia’s Work, as well as Cowboy Dave, A Drowning Man, and Wren Boys.

Both the short film and major directorial category notably feature no women directors, with the five nominees for best director comprising Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo Del Toro and Martin McDonagh. It follows in similar suit to this week’s Golden Globe awards, where the majority of women wore black in support of the Time’s Up women’s rights movement, and yet no women were nominated for best director.

Barbra Streisand commented when presenting the best motion picture award: “I’m the only woman to get the best director award [at the Golden Globes]. That was 1984 [for Yentl], that was 34 years ago. Folks, time’s up! We need more women directors and more women to be nominated for best director. These are so many films out there that are so good directed by women.”