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| Author | Mia Blakeney |
The 26th British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) were announced on Sunday 3 December at an awards ceremony at London’s Old Billingsgate.
The big winner of the night was All Of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh and starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell. The film was awarded Best British Independent Film, for which Femme, How To Have Sex, Rye Lane and Scrapper were also nominated.
All Of Us Strangers also received awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Performance for Paul Mescal, one of two winners for this year’s award. The film received a number of BIFA Craft awards, for Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Music Supervision.
Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature How To Have Sex also performed very well at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards. Mia McKenna-Bruce was awarded Best Lead Performance, and Shaun Thomas won Best Supporting Performance. The film also won the BIFA Craft award for Best Casting.
The BIFA for Best Joint Lead Performance was awarded to Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay, from Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s Femme. The film also won BIFA Craft awards for Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up and Hair Design.
The most-nominated film at the BIFAs this year was Raine Allen-Miller’s debut film Rye Lane. The romantic-comedy was nominated for 8 BIFAs in total, including Best British Independent Film. Vivian Oparah took home the award for Breakthrough Performance, for her first leading role in a feature film.
Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall was presented with the BIFA for Best International Independent Film. Earlier this year, the film received the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, and recently won Best Screenplay and Best International Feature at The Gotham Awards 2023.
The BIFA for Best Debut Screenwriter was awarded to Nida Manzoor for her film Polite Society, and the Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director was received by Savanah Leaf for her film Earth Mama.
The award for Best Breakthrough Producer was given to Theo Barrowclough of Scrapper, and the Raindance Maverick Award, which celebrates bold, risk-taking filmmakers on a limited budget, was presented to Alice Russell and Gannesh Rajah for If The Streets Were On Fire.
The 2023 Richard Harris Award for outstanding contribution by an actor to British film was presented to Stephen Graham (Boiling Point, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical). The actor paid special tribute to all crew and below-the-line workers he has worked with across his career.
The Special Jury Prize, awarded by the BIFA jury, was given to We Are Parable, a grassroots company that deliver Black cinema to audiences in culturally relevant and innovative ways. The company run a successful mentoring programme for Black filmmakers and content creators called Momentum, and are the distributors of Savannah Leaf’s Earth Mama, their first acquisition, which was awarded the BIFA for Best Debut Director.