Slumdog steals BAFTA show ...

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-10 13:51

U.S. Actor Mickey Rourke poses after winning the award for Leading Actor for "The Wrestler" during the 2009 BAFTA awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House in London.[Agencies]

Slumdog Millionaire, Kate Winslet and Mickey Rourke became firm Oscar favorites with big wins at the British Academy Film Awards.

Rags-to-riches tale Slumdog continued its fairy-tale journey with seven prizes on Sunday, including best picture. Winslet and Rourke took acting honors - Winslet for her role as a former Nazi concentration camp guard in The Reader, Rourke for his career-reviving performance as a washed-up athlete in The Wrestler. Heath Ledger won a posthumous supporting actor award for The Dark Knight.

"It's such a pleasure to be back here, out of the darkness," Rourke said.

After her onstage emotional meltdown at the Golden Globes last month, Winslet was a model of composure, thanking her parents, sitting in the audience, "who I will not look at right now, otherwise I will burst into tears."

Slumdog, Danny Boyle's film about a Mumbai street boy's rise from poverty to game-show triumph, went into the ceremony with 11 nominations and won prizes for best film, best director, adapted screenplay, music, cinematography, editing and sound.

The low-budget film, shot partly in Hindi, has gone from rank outsider to Academy Awards favorite since it won four trophies at the Golden Globe awards last month and became a box-office hit.

Its makers are still getting used to the change. "I thought at one stage we were going straight to DVD," said screenwriter Simon Beaufoy.

The film has caused controversy in India, where some have complained it shows the country in an unflattering light, and others have said its title insults the poor.

Boyle dedicated his award partly to the people of Mumbai, where it was shot and also to people closer to home.

"The wiring in my dad's house blew overnight, and it's just a big shout-out to everyone who helped him get the extension cable in so he could watch this on television," Boyle said.

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