Slumdog Millionaire ready for a bite of Oscars

With seven Baftas under its belt, the £10 million movie trounced its closest rival, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which mustered only three technical awards.

And with a huge swell of popular goodwill behind it, the film which did not even have an American distributor last autumn might just replicate victory in Los Angeles on Sunday week.

More pictures: the best-dressed stars at the Baftas
More pictures: The winners at the Baftas
More pictures: The after-show party

The big question is whether Kate Winslet, 33, can follow Slumdog director Danny Boyle and his team onto the podium.

She won best actress for The Reader, based on the German novel about a former Nazi camp guard. "The girl from Reading will always be in me and it feels more present than ever in moments like this one, being given a big fat prize," Winslet said.

"These are dreams that as a child I wouldn't even dare to dream. I'm just making the most of every single moment and I think it would be wrong to hope for anything beyond this moment."

It was her first Bafta since Sense And Sensibility in 1995, and it is the part for which she is up for leading actress at the Oscars. Winslet has been nominated five times before without success.

As Ricky Gervais cynically observed in his TV series Extras, the role is exactly the type the American Academy loves to honour.

But Winslet might find stiffer competition in the States against Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and the stern brilliance of Meryl Streep's nun in Doubt.

But it will be hard for the Americans to overlook the Brits this year.

As John Woodward, the UK Film Council's chief executive officer, observed at the celebrations afterwards, it had been a "stellar night" for British film. "The Baftas have shown the strength and depth of the British film industry in an increasingly tough global market," he said.

And the potential for the Oscars does not even end with Winslet and Boyle. Man On Wire, the story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who in 1974 walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York, is a favourite for best documentary after scooping the award for outstanding British film last night.

It, too, has the right feelgood factor with a storyline described by director James Marsh as "a real-life fairytale".

What Britain demonstrated was British film-making in full multi-cultural, international, talent-laden glory.

The team behind Slumdog Millionaire, the part-Hindi, Mumbai-made film with an Indian cast, rightly revelled in their sweep of wins. Writer Simon Beaufoy, who took the adapted screenplay honour, revealed afterwards he would love to turn it into a musical with more song and dance.

"I think we could put this on stage and do 10 dance numbers and that would be wonderful," he said.

Pinewood and Shepperton Studios, where 1,500 films have been made during the last 75 years, took the Bafta for outstanding contribution to film. Among new talents honoured were Steve McQueen, the Turner Prize-winning artist, and Doctor Who actor Noel Clarke, who both grew up in west London. McQueen received the Carl Foreman special achievement award for his first feature film, Hunger, about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.

And at 33 Noel Clarke, who wrote, directed and appeared in the film Adulthood, won the Orange rising star award, voted for by the public.

"The world must be coming to an end," he said. "I think, if I am not mistaken, that Steve and myself will be the first and second black British males to win movie Baftas.

"I think it speaks volumes about what is happening in the world today. If I am not a testament that a council estate kid can do all right, then I don't know who is." Stars including Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Stone, Sir Mick Jagger, Goldie Hawn, Robert Downey Jnr and Angelina Jolie with husband Brad Pitt braved the cold and rain to walk up the red carpet for the ceremony in the Royal Opera House.

More pictures: the best-dressed stars at the Baftas
More pictures: The winners at the Baftas
More pictures: The after-show party