/ 12 December 2013

Mandela film gets three Golden Globe nominations

Mandela Film Gets Three Golden Globe Nominations

A film about the life of former president Nelson Mandela titled Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom received three Golden Globe nominations on Thursday.

The nominations were announced in Los Angeles, the company that produced the film, Videovision Entertainment, said in a statement.

Idris Elba, who plays Mandela in the film, was nominated for Best Actor and the film's music composer, Alex Heffes, scooped a nomination in the Best Original Score category.

Irish rock band U2 was nominated for the Best Original Song for Ordinary Love, a song written specially for the film.

The film's producer Anant Singh said it was an honour to have received three Golden Globe Nominations. This was a first for a South African film.

Elba also received a nomination for Best Actor in a Mini-Series made for Television for his role in the television series, Luther. "We congratulate Idris on his amazing performance in the film and his double nomination, and we congratulate Alex and U2 on receiving this recognition," said Singh.

Neck-and-neck
Meanwhile, nominations as early frontrunners for Oscar season, with Gravity and Rush in pursuit Steve McQueen's true-life slavery saga 12 Years
looked to be in a neck-and-neck race with David O Russell's crime caper American Hustle
as nominations for the 71st annual Golden Globe awards were announced in Los Angeles. 

Both pictures, vastly different in tone, picked up seven nominations apiece.

Based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as a free man sold into bondage, 12 Years a Slave picked up seven nods, including best dramatic actor and best film drama. Rounding out the best film (drama) list were Captain Phillips (five nominations), Gravity (four nominations), Philomena (three nominations) and Rush (three nominations).

American Hustle, starring Christian Bale, was also shortlisted for seven awards, including best comedy actor and best comedy or musical. It is joined in the latter category by Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Her and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Nominations were announced in Beverly Hills, California, by the actors Olivia Wilde, Zoe Saldana and Aziz Ansari.

Elsewhere, several of the year's most critically acclaimed pictures square off on the foreign film shortlist, where the French romance Blue is the Warmest Colour and Italian drama The Great Beauty find themselves bracketed alongside The Wind Rises (Japan), The Past (Iran) and The Hunt (Denmark).

The animation prize, meanwhile, is a three-way fight between The Croods, Frozen and Despicable Me 2.

McQueen's film has already won nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild and collected awards from the US critics bodies in New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will return to host the ceremony for the second year running. The comedy duo, whose stint last year brought in 19.7-million viewers for host network NBC, have been signed up to host until 2016. T

The 2014 Golden Globes take place on Sunday 12 January. – Sapa, Guardian News & Media 2013