Ang Lee receives 2021 BAFTA Fellowship

Taipei, April 12 (CNA) Taiwanese film director Ang Lee (李安) received a BAFTA Fellowship at this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) ceremony held virtually Monday during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year's ceremony was broadcast live from London's Royal Albert Hall, with English actor Hugh Grant presenting Lee with the award, which he accepted online.

"It's a tremendous honor to receive the BAFTA Academy Fellowship and be counted among such brilliant filmmakers," Lee said via a video feed upon receiving the award.

He noted England has been particularly good to him in his career, adding that Britain "was the only market where The Ice Storm made any money."

Britain also served as a "second film school" when he was directing the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility because at the time he "could only communicate in very short sentences" in English, according to Lee.

"The comments I gave the actors were very concise, direct and honest. The cast was competing to see who would get the most rude remark from me," Lee said.

After Sense And Sensibility, Lee said, he dared to venture into many other types of movies which gave him courage to expand his horizons and open his heart.

Filmmaking is about the courage to open ourselves to truth through story telling, sight, and sound reflected on the silver screen, Lee said, "That's how I connected with the world. That's what I love doing."

Grant, who played a lead role in Sense and Sensibility, lauded Lee as one of the classiest filmmakers at the ceremony, noting Lee has directed a wide range of films, from his earlier Taiwanese masterpieces like Eat Drink Man Woman, to The Ice Storm; Sense and Sensibility; Brokeback Mountain; The Hulk; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Lust, Caution; and Life Of Pi.

"It's almost impossible to imagine that one man directed them all," Grant said, joking that Taiwan is well known to be a world leader in cloning science and he is convinced half a dozen cloned Ang Lees live there.

Lee has won several BAFTA awards for his movies Sense And Sensibility in 1996; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2001; and Brokeback Mountain in 2006.

He also won best director at the Oscars for Brokeback Mountain in 2006 and Life Of Pi in 2013.