A Rich
Heritage

Since the early days, our passion and ambition for supporting and progressing the creative industries has grown and grown.

Eleven years after we were first formed as the British Film Academy we joined forces with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors to become The Society of Film and Television Arts. Prince Phillip was our first President of the Academy – the post that Prince William now holds today.

Then we welcomed those working in games and interactive entertainment into our fold of members, launching the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards in 1998 and then the Games Awards in 2004.

Today, we are known around the world as champions of creative talent. We host yearly celebrations of the achievements of those working in film, games and TV, and run well-established world-class learning and events programmes across the UK and North America.

BAFTA has enjoyed a long history of involvement and support from the Royal Family dating back to 1959, when HRH Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, was appointed its first President. The appointment came a year after The British Film Academy (founded 1947) and the Guild of Television Producers and Directors merged to create the Society of Film and Television Arts (‘SFTA’, a forerunner of BAFTA).

The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, The Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, then took over the organisation’s presidency from 1966 to 1972. The Earl Mountbatten, a man who at the time was of significant national stature, and a man of cinema in his own right, is credited with bringing films to King George’s ships in the early 20s and designing the conversion system to turn all the ships’ projectors to take ‘talkies’ after the silent film era.

Then in 1972 Princess Anne became the organisation’s third president in its history, taking over from The Earl Mountbatten of Burma. In 1976, the year that the SFTA was renamed BAFTA, the first ‘BAFTA award’ – the bronze mask based on the original design by Mitzi Cunliffe – was presented by Princess Anne to Sir Charles Chaplin in honour of his Fellowship.

Over the course of her 30-year involvement with the Academy, Princess Anne helped increase the stature of the organisation in the UK and internationally at a time when film and television were not considered in the same spectrum as dance, theatre and opera. She represented BAFTA internationally. In 1985, she opened A Royal Day of Film and Television, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. In 2001, when she stepped down as president, BAFTA was an international organisation, with branches in New York and Los Angeles, as well as Scotland and Wales. The main cinema theatre at BAFTA’s headquarters, 195 Piccadilly, was renamed The Princess Anne Theatre in her honour.

Following a major redevelopment project, in 2022 we re-opened BAFTA 195 Piccadilly as a state-of-the–art space to better serve our members and the next generation of film, games and TV talent.

Our heritage plays an important role in informing both the present and future of the Academy.

That’s why we are proud to say our membership draws a direct line from founding members Michael Balcon, Paul Rotha, Anthony Asquith, Thorold Dickinson, Frank Lauder, David lean, Michael Powell, Alexander Korda and Carol Reed, plus first female members Muriel Box, Mary Field and Clemence Dane, to the up-and-coming talent of today.