Atonement, the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's best-selling novel, was named best film at the star-studded BAFTAs, the UK's showpiece movie awards, on Sunday.
Daniel Day-Lewis was named best actor for his role in There Will Be Blood, and French actress Marion Cotillard was the surprise winner of the best actress award for La Vie En Rose, in which she played singer Edith Piaf.
The British Academy Film and Television Arts awards took on increased importance this year, after a writers' strike in the US reduced the Golden Globes, traditionally the second-biggest film awards after the Oscars, to a mere news conference last month.
Overall, though Atonement, a romantic drama about life and love in World War II, had been nominated in 14 categories, it managed to win only two, with the other coming in the production design category.
Discussing whether or not the night had been a disappointment for the cast and crew of Atonement, co-producer Eric Fellner said: "When you are nominated 14 times and see 12 losses it's a great relief. Being nominated is an extraordinary thing. I'm incredibly happy to have 14 nominations and two wins."
While Day-Lewis was the favorite to win the best actor gong, Cotillard's victory meant Julie Christie, for Away From Her, and Keira Knightley, for Atonement, left empty-handed. The former was favorite to win.
Her award comes after she won a Golden Globe for the same performance, and the 32-year-old has also been nominated for an Oscar.
La Vie En Rose finished with four awards, the most of any film at the BAFTAs - it also won in the music, costume design and makeup categories, with Cotillard having to play Piaf as a 19-year-old and, eventually, as a frail woman who died aged 47.
She later said that her award victory was "totally surreal" and added: "I'm absolutely shocked, totally shocked. I'm so happy ... I don't know what Edith Piaf would think about this. I hope she would be happy."
Sunday's victory for Day-Lewis, 50, gives him his second BAFTA, having won one in 1990, and follows similar successes at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors' Guild Awards, and his portrayal of oil baron Daniel Plainview has also earned him an Oscar nomination.
On Sunday evening, he beat out, among others, James McAvoy for Atonement and George Clooney for Michael Clayton.
"It didn't occur to me when I was doing the film that it would be a film that a lot of people would want to see," Day-Lewis said backstage after the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Joel and Ethan Coen won in the best director category for their dark thriller No Country for Old Men at the ceremony at central London's Royal Opera House.
Transformers star Shia LaBeouf won the Orange rising star award, and Oscar-winning actor Anthony Hopkins was presented with the BAFTA fellowship.
Tilda Swinton was named best supporting actress for Michael Clayton while Javier Bardem won in the Best Supporting Actor category for No Country for Old Men.
Though the BAFTAs normally play second fiddle to the Golden Globes, the writers' strike in the US gave the awards - officially the Orange British Academy Film Awards but popularly known as BAFTAs - extra importance.
The unions representing striking Hollywood screenwriters said on Saturday, however, that they had agreed to a deal to settle their three-month-old dispute, and could be back at work within days if the deal meets with union members' approval.
The strike severely disrupted Hollywood's annual awards season, leading to the cancellation of the Golden Globes awards after actors vowed to boycott the event, and casting a shadow over preparations for the Feb. 24 Oscars.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,