The first few months of the year are always dominated by the various Film Award Ceremonies; we have had the Golden Globes, the BAFTA nominees have been announced and the Oscar buzz is ever growing. On Thursday night however we were on the Red Carpet at the Critics’ Circle Film Awards, attended by Carey Mulligan, Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Irvine, Michael Fassbender and Jean Dujardin.

Star of War Horse Jeremy Irvine commented on the rush of attending one lavish ceremony after another, "I've just literally, three hours ago, got off the plane from the Globes which was a bit of a whirlwind. I'm still not used to it but its good fun.”

Irvine may have to get used to such jet setting with what sounds like another busy year coming up:

“I've got my next movie coming out in May with Dakota Fanning, then ‘Great Expectations’ coming out later this year with Ralph Fiennes and also I'm doing a film called ‘Railway Man’ with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz."

Another attendee who has enjoyed a great year was, director of the brilliant documentary ‘Senna’, Asif Kapadia. Before the ceremony began he told us:

"It’s an amazing feeling to be nominated for Best Documentary here but also at other Awards as Best British Film. We were always trying to make a movie; we did not set out to make a documentary. My background is in drama so for me that was more natural and something about Senna and what he stood for and the things that he did he feels like a movie star.

I wanted to make a film that played to not just people who wanted to see a documentary, not just sports fans but it had to work for people who wanted to see movies and be excited. Hopefully that's what the

movie does.”

For Kapadia, Senna was an obvious focus for his film:

“I think it's his charisma, it’s the way he looks, it’s what he stands for, it’s the way he goes doing about what he does - the more I learnt about him, the more I liked him. He is a genuinely good guy who follows through with what he believes in and he's like an action movie star - he does his own stunts! And that rivalry isn't made up, it's not fiction."

The big winner on the night though was (surprise, surprise) ‘The Artist’ and we spoke with both director Michel Hazanavicius and lead actor Jean Dujardin beforehand.

Hazanavicius admitted he was pleasantly surprised with the film’s success:

"I hoped people would enjoy it but I could not expect that strong a response...I really tried to make a joyful film so I'm very touched when people enjoy it.”

Commenting on speculation whether the movie will inspire more silent films, he joked, “I don't know if there will be other silent movies, the Artist 2 will be talking!”

Both Hazanavicius and Dujardin stated they found it funny that reportedly people had walked of the film not realising it was meant to be a silent movie with Dujardin adding sarcastically "I hope they regret walking out!”

Unfortunately one star of the film was missing from the event with Uggie the dog obviously in demand elsewhere, but Dujardin said he wasn’t jealous of the attention his ‘co-star’ had been receiving, “Uggie and George Valentine are the same character like Siamese twins, he's like my shadow.”

With Uggie not in attendance though Dujardin was able to lap up the attention from the many screaming fans and jokingly he commented such a response was “the story of my life!”

Onto the next Awards Ceremony!