Vera Drake Honored with Three BAFTA Posted: Feb 24, 2005

Fine Line Feature’s Vera Drake received three awards at this year’s  British Academy Film Awards, the BAFTAs.  Mike Leigh, also nominated for an Academy Award®, received the best directory award while Imelda Staunton won best actress for her performance as a 1950s English housewife who performs illegal abortions. The film also took the costume design prize for Jacqueline Durran’s work.

"Mike Leigh is a genius, and working on this film was a dream come true," Staunton said.

"It's an immense privilege to have been allowed the freedom to make as uncompromising a film as I think we've made, and to make such an epic film with such a small budget," Leigh said.

The British awards, known as BAFTAs, were moved in 2000 from April to a February date, preceding the Academy Awards, for which Vera Drake has three nominations.  Fine Line is a division of New Line Cinema.