Dubliner Richard Baneham has picked up an award in the special visual effects category for Avatar at the Baftas.
US film The Hurt Locker stole the show with a best director and best film double, at the awards ceremony in last night in London.
Kathryn Bigelow won the best director award for the Iraq war drama.
Colin Firth won best actor for his role in A Single Man.
Irish actress Saoirse Ronan had been nominated in the best actress category for her performance in The Lovely Bones but lost out to Carey Mulligan, star of An Education.
The Hurt Locker, which also took the awards for best cinematography, best editing, best sound and best original screenplay, triumphed again over blockbuster Avatar. After being crowned best director, Bigelow described the gong as "beyond our wildest imagination".
She said: “This is so unbelievable, we’re just so deeply honoured and humbled.” Bigelow said the film had put “a bit of a spotlight on a very, very difficult situation”.
Twilight heart-throb actor Robert Pattinson presented the original screenplay award to Mark Boal for his role in the drama.
“This is really a wonderful honour . . . I was very fortunate on this picture to have tremendous actors," Boal said. "I’d like to thank them for this and also Kathryn Bigelow . . . It was an unpopular story about an unpopular war.”
Bigelow, who received the award from Clive Owen, saw off competition from ex-husband, Avatar director James Cameron, among others to win her award.
“I was so, so lucky to have an incredible cast and crew . . .,” she said. “This is really amazing and humbling . . .” She added: “I would like to dedicate this to never abandoning the need to find a resolution for peace.
Firth was recognised at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, as the Baftas are formally known, for his portrayal of a gay academic battling grief in A Single Man, directed by fashion designer Tom Ford.
“What Tom Ford doesn’t know is I have the e-mail in my outbox telling him I could not possibly do this,” the actor said. “I was about to send this when a man came to repair my fridge . . . I don’t know what’s best for me so I would like to thank the fridge guy.”
He thanked Ford who “knows what’s best for me. An encounter with Tom Ford is to come away feeling resuscitated, a little more worldly, better groomed, more fragrant, and more nominated than one has ever been before”.