It’s already been an eventful awards season for costume designer Charlotte Walter, winning a British Independent Film Award for her work on Misbehavior and garnering another nomination for Belfast (Focus Features).
The latter film–written and directed by Kenneth Branagh–has already made a major mark on the awards show circuit, named one of the top ten films of the year by the National Board of Review, receiving a special prize from the American Film Institute, and winning the People’s Choice Award at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
The People’s Choice Award is often a harbinger of things to come at the Academy Awards. Over the past decade-plus, every People’s Choice Award winner has gone on to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination. In 2020 that was Nomadland which wound up winning the Best Picture Oscar, following in the footsteps of such People’s Choice Award-winning features as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech.
A coming-of-age tale set in late 1960s’ Northern Ireland, Belfast introduces us to Buddy (portrayed by Jude Hill), a lad living with his mother (Caitriona Balfe), father (Jamie Dornan), brother (Lewis McAskie) and grandparents (Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds) during “the Troubles” when neighborhood streets turned into war zones as unrest grew between Catholics and Protestants. This era is seen largely through the eyes of a child, Buddy, and has a semi-autobiographical bent informed to some extent by Branagh’s experiences as a youngster. The story first and foremost is about the love and resilience of a family, showing how that deep bond survives universal struggles.
The heartfelt black-and-white film was shot by Branagh’s long-time colleague, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos. On the other end of the collaborative continuum, Belfast marked Walter’s first time teaming with Branagh. The opportunity came about through Belfast co-producer Celia Duval who had worked with Walter previously. Duval reached out to Walter in July 2020, asking the costume designer how she felt about working on a film just coming out of the pandemic lockdown. Any hesitation on Walter’s part was erased by the inspired script, which offered enticing creative challenges for a costume designer, doing justice to real people in a real situation, including parents who–while limited in what they could afford and by no means glamorous–still had a distinct sense of style. Walter recalled Branagh telling her that his parents were proud people who loved fashion and successfully got as near as they could get to being fashionable in Belfast in the 1960s.
Branagh additionally noted that his mom and grandma were knitters. Walter connected with some experts in hand knitting, yielding articles of clothing like Buddy’s jumper and grandma’s cardigan to lend an authentic extra dimension to the people and their attire.
Walter also dug into the archives, finding photographs of folks in Belfast in the late ‘60s. The place and era were well chronicled photographically as Walter accessed pictures of everyday people as well as soldiers in the streets.
Perhaps the hardest part of the process was dealing with COVID restrictions. “Not being able to be physically with Ken (Branagh) and many other people meant a different way of working,” related Walter. She remembered having to hold up fabric for a Judi Dench costume up to the camera for a Zoom call so Branagh could get an idea of what was being created. “He was amazing,” said Walter of Branagh. “He could totally see the direction I was going in very quickly.” To later have Branagh go on set and see the costume work was “an incredible joy,” said Walter who conducted fittings at a costume house in London, adhering to COVID protocols. Photos were taken of the fittings and sent to Branagh to show him how the work was progressing.
Walter said all those involved were “thrilled to be working,” perhaps valuing the experience all the more in that the pandemic had them at one point questioning if or when they would get to work again. Branagh, she noted, also cast kids out of drama school, giving them a chance to work on a major production, one of the first happening after lockdown. “You could feel their excitement,” Walter said.
Walter also felt excitement over the prospects of a black-and-white film, conscious over giving the clothes a three-dimensional feel through textures. Still she dressed everyone as if we saw them in color because that reflected the personalities of each character, helping the actors define those they were portraying.
Those portrayals ultimately conveyed the love of a family. And akin to that deep familial connection was the esprit de corps among cast and crew. Walter felt this specifically in her department as she bonded with colleagues including costume supervisor Kate Eden, assistant costume designer Hannah Warren, principal costume standbys Doina Raducut and Raluca Tataru. “The camaraderie, the love that everybody had for making the film, the humanity was very special,” affirmed Walter. “Everybody was very kind and human. Definitely we all felt very blessed to be a part of it. My team felt exactly that same way.
In addition to the aforementioned recognition from the British Independent Film Awards, Walter over the years has received such accolades as a BAFTA TV Award for Best Costume Design on the strength of her work for Birdsong in 2012. The year prior she was nominated for that same honor for This Is England ‘86. She also earned Best Costume Design: Drama nominations from the Royal Television Society for This Is England ‘86 and This Is England ‘88, respectively, in 2011 and 2012.
This is the sixth installment of a 16-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies and on SHOOTonline.com, with select installments also in print issues. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 94th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, February 8, 2022. The 94th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
