Dame Helen Mirren will lead a special tribute to the late Queen at this year’s film Baftas.
The veteran actress, 77, has portrayed the monarch on the silver screen and on stage, winning an Oscar and a Bafta for her performance in the 2006 biographical drama The Queen.
Bafta colleague Dame Helen will lead the Queen’s eulogy at the 76th annual film awards ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank Center on Sunday.
The Queen has had a close association with the Academy which has lasted 50 years and has seen her donate and support initiatives, as well as attend many events over the years.
In 1972, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh donated the profits from the Royal Family documentary to the Society of Film and Television Arts (SFTA), which later became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta), for a new headquarters. .
The organization was renamed during the official opening of the headquarters in 1976, by the Queen, and it is still the London home of Bafta five decades later.
During her lifetime, the Queen was a patron of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Royal Variety Charity and the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.
In April 2013, the Queen received an honorary Bafta award from Sir Kenneth Branagh at Windsor Castle for her “unwavering support” of the industry.
The Queen’s grandson, the Prince of Wales, has been president of Bafta since 2010.
William and Kate will attend the ceremony for the first time in three years before meeting Rising Star Award winners and nominees.
Bafta Chief Executive Jane Millichip said: “It’s a great pleasure to welcome so many nominees and guests from the film industry to the EE Bafta Film Awards on Sunday.
“This year’s Awards are shaping up to be one of the biggest attendances on record, reflecting the importance of British audiences to the global film industry, and Bafta’s role in bringing to call these incredible films and filmmakers.
“Bafta’s membership of 7,500 industry experts have voted and I can’t wait to find out which names will be read out on the night.”
This year sees Netflix’s anti-war epic All Quiet On The Western Front with 14 nominations – closely followed by Colin Farrell’s The Banshees Of Inisherin and Michelle Yeoh’s Everything Everywhere All At Once with 10 nominations one.
The EE Bafta Film Awards will be broadcast on February 19 at 7pm on BBC One and iPlayer.