Britain:The film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonementled the field when the film nominations for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) awards were announced in London yesterday.
It received 14 nominations, including one for Saoirse Ronan (13), who is from Carlow and is shortlisted as best supporting actress. Séamus McGarvey from Armagh was nominated as best cinematographer for his work on Atonement.
Wicklow resident and Irish citizen Daniel Day-Lewis was nominated as best actor for his performance as an avaricious oil prospector in There Will Be Blood, which won him a Golden Globe this week.
Dublin-based US sound mixer Tom Johnson was nominated in the best sound category for the same film.
Two Irish short films received nominations. The Crumblegiant, written and directed by John McCloskey, was selected in the best short animation film category. It was produced under the Frameworks scheme funded by the Irish Film Board, the Arts Council and RTÉ.
Nominated for best short film is Hesitation, written and directed by Virginia Gilbert. It features Gerard McSorley as a middle-aged man on a package holiday in France where he vents his discontent on a local boy.
Ulrich Mühe, the German actor who died of stomach cancer last summer at the age of 54, is nominated as best actor for The Lives of Others.
The other nominees are James McAvoy ( Atonement), George Clooney ( Michael Clayton), Viggo Mortensen ( Eastern Promises) and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Joining Keira Knightley ( Atonement) and Julie Christie ( Away From Her) on the shortlist for best actress are Marion Cotillard ( La Vie en Rose), Ellen Page ( Juno) and Cate Blanchett ( Elizabeth: The Golden Age).
Blanchett is also nominated as best supporting actress for playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, along with Kelly Macdonald ( No Country for Old Men), Samantha Morton ( Control), Tilda Swinton ( Michael Clayton) and Saoirse Ronan.
The nominations for best supporting actor are Paul Dano ( There Will Be Blood), Philip Seymour Hoffman ( Charlie Wilson's War), Tom Wilkinson ( Michael Clayton) and Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men).
Two foreign-language films fared particularly well.
La Vie en Rose, dealing with the life and death of Edith Piaf, received seven nominations, and German drama The Lives of Othersgot five.
Both are on the shortlist for best foreign-language film along with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Kite Runnerand Lust, Caution.
The Lives of Othersalso figures among the nominees for best film and best director (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck), and it is joined in both categories by There Will Be Bloodand No Country for Old Men, which have nine nominations each, and Atonement. Completing the best film shortlist is American Gangster, while Paul Greengrass ( The Bourne Ultimatum) is the fifth nominee for best director.
Among the contenders which failed to receive any nominations were Into the Wild, A Mighty Heart, 3:10 to Yuma, Before the Devil Knows You're Deadand The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
The Bafta awards will be presented at a televised ceremony in London on February 10th.