The nominees for the BAFTA’s 2010 have been announced and Avatar quite predictably came out with quite a number of nominations, eight in total.

The blue people are not the only ones on number eight though; An Education and The Hurt Locker also have eight nominations each to boast about.

To my delight and undoubtedly a whole lot of South Africans too, District 9 is just a little behind the pack leaders with seven nominations.

As if that wasn’t enough of a pat on the back, District 9 director Neil Blomkamp is also up for Best Director along with Quentin Tarantino for inglourious Basterds, James Cameron for Avatar, Lone Scherfig for An Education and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker.

My prediction for this one is Quentin Tarantino and No! it’s not for lack of Patriotism, I’m just putting my head on the block for my favourite director here!

Congratulations to the District 9 crew, you have done South Africa proud.

Up In The Air and Inglourious Basterds have six nominations each.

The ladies in Leading Actress are represented by Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia, Carey Mulligan in An Education, Audrey Tautou in Coco Before Chanel, Gabourey Sidibe in Precious and Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely Bones.

For Best Supporting Actress, two of the nominations went to Up In The Air for their actresses, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Nowhere Boy also received two nominations for their supporting ladies’ Anne Marie Duff and Kristin Scott Thomas and last but certainly not least, Mo’nique was nominated for her role in Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

The BAFTA’s are the highest honours of the Academy in Film and Television and other categories that they offer are:

1. ORIGINAL SCREEN PLAY

2. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

3. MUSIC

4. CINEMATOGRAPHY

5. EDITING

6. PRODUCTION DESIGN

7. COSTUME DESIGN

8. SOUND

9. SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

10. MAKE UP AND HAIR

11. SHORT ANIMATION

12. SHORT FILM ETC.

The Film Awards will take place on Sunday 21 February 2010.