2024 British Independent Film Awards Nominations

Few minutes ago organizers, assisted by Mia McKenna-Bruce and Vivian Oparah, announced the 2024 nominations for the award that celebrates British independent films. Kneecap leads the nominations with 14, including Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Debut Director, Best Debut Screenwriter, Best Independent Film and more.

Kneecap is followed by none other than Love Lies Bleeding by Rose Glass with 12 nominations including Best Independent Film, Best Director, Best Joint Lead Performance for Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian, Best Screenplay, and more.

With 9 nominations follows The Outrun, 7 noms each Bird, Becoming a Guinea Fowl and Unicorns, 6 for Hoard and Civil War, plus more films honored with nominations. In total, 29 British feature films are being honored in current edition.

2024 edition is full of A-listers -which only suggests a possible industry surging trend- and films by female directors -which hope it is an increasing trend-. Among the A-listers are Alicia Vikander (stars in 2 nominated films), Kristen Stewart, Saorise Ronan, Elliot Page, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and newcomer rising real fast, Barry Keoghan, who stars in two honored films.

Also worth mentioning is the significant presence of films in recent or past editions of the three world main film festivals as, for example, four of the five top award nominees were premiered in the past edition of Berlin (Love Lies Bleeding and The Outrun) and Cannes (On Becoming a Guinea Fowl and Santosh). Considering all award categories there are some film directors that are winners or had nods in Berlin (Nora Fingscheidt), Venice (Luna Carmoon) and Cannes (Rungano Nyoni).   Films from the three main world film festivals being honored in independent film awards is quite unusual and the amount of films in this award current edition is not only unusual but extraordinary.

The Richard Harris Award recognizes outstanding contribution to British Film by and actor will be announced in the coming weeks as well as the winner of the 2024 BIFA for Best Ensemble Performance, the ceremony host and this year's juries. Winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony at the Roundhouse on Sunday, December 8, 2024.

The List

Best British Independent Film
Kneecap, Rich Peppiatt
Love Lies Bleeding, Rose Glass
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl, Rungano Nyoni
The Outrun, Nora Fingscheidt
Santosh, Sandhya Suri

The Raindance Maverick Award (recognizes films made with budgets under L1.3 million)
The Ceremony, Jack King
Grand Theft Hamlet, Pinny Grylls, and Sam Crane
Restless, Jed Hart 
Satu -The Year of the Rabbit, Joshua Trigg
Witches, Elizabeth Sankey

Best International Independent Film
All We Imagine As Light, Payal Kapadia
Anora, Sean Baker
La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher
No Other Land, Basel Adra, Yuvai Abraham, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor
The Seed of The Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof

Best Director
Andrea Arnold for Bird
Nora Fingscheidt for The Outrun
Rose Glass for Love Lies Bleeding
Rungano Nyoni for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Rich Peppiatt for Kneecap

The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director
Christopher Andrews for Bring Them Down
Luna Carmoon for Hoard
James Krishna Floyd for Unicorns
Karan Kandhari for Sister Midnight
Rich Peppiatt for Kneecap

Best Debut Director - Feature Documentary
Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane for Grand Theft Hamlet
Manon Ouimet and Jacob Perlmutter for Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
Rachel Ramsay for Copa 71
Clair Titley for The Contestant

Best Screeenplay
Nora Fingscheidt and Amy Liptrot for The Outrun
Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska for Love Lies Bleeding
Rungano Nyoni for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Rich Peppiatt for Kneecap
Sandhya Suri for Santosh

Best Debut Screenwriter
James Krishna Floyd for Unicorns
Karan Kandhari for Sister Midnight
Rich Peppiatt for Kneecap
Sandhya Suri for Santosh
Mrs. and Mr. Thomas for The Assessment

Best Lead Performance
Radhika Apte in Sister Midnight
Susan Chardy in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths
Elliot Page in Close to You
Saorise Ronan in The Outrun
Alicia Vikander in The Assessment

Best Joint Lead Performance
Joseph Quinn and Saura Lightfoot Leon in Hoard
Katy O'Brian and Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding
Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh in Kneecap
Jason Patel and Ben Hardy in Unicorns

Best Supporting Performance
Michele Austin in Hard Truths
Elizabeth Chisela in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Barry Keoghan in Bird
Jack O'Connell in Back to Black
Franz Rogowski in Bird
Hayley Squires in Hoard

Breakthrough Performance
Nykiya Adams in Bird
Susan Chardy in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Saura Lightfoot-Leon in Hoard
Ruaridh Mollica in Sebastian
Jason Patel in Unicorns

Breakthrough Producer
Hollie Bryan and Lucy Meer for The Ceremony
Balthazar de Ganay and James Bowsher for Santosh
Jacob Swan Hyam for Bring Them Down
Ben Toye for Treading Water
Rebecca Wolff for Grand Theft Hamlet

Best British Short Film
Delivery, Ben Lankester
Housewarming, Liam White 
Meat Puppet, Eros V. 
A Move, Elahe Esmaili
Wander to Wonder, Nina Gantz

Best Cinematography
Pawel Edelman for Lee
Ben Fordesman for Love Lies Bleeding
Rob Hardy for Civil War
Yunus Roy Imer for The Outrun
Ryan Kernaghan for Kneecap

Best Costume Design
Zjena Glamocanin for Kneecap
Meghan Kasperlik for Civil War
Olga Mill for Love Lies Bleeding
Nirage Mirage for Unicorns
Michael O'Connor for Firebrand

Best Editing
Stephen Bechinger for The Outrun
Joe Bini for Bird
Margarida Cartaxo and Stuart Davidson for Made In England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
Jake Roberts for Civil War
Julian Ulrichs and Chris Gill for Kneecap

Best Effects
James Allen for Love Lies Bleeding
Glen McGuigan and Ingo Putze for Lee
David Simpson for Civil War

Best Casting
Heather Basten for Hoard
Isabella Odoffin for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Lucy Pardee for Bird
Carla Stronge for Kneecap
Mary Vernieu and Lindsay Graham Ahanonu for Love Lies Bleeding

Best Make-Up and Hair Design
Megan Daum and Frieda Valenzuela for Love Lies Bleeding
Peta Dunstall for Back to Black
Kat Morgan for The Outrun
Lisa Mustafa for Unicorns
Jenny Shircore for Firebrand

Best Music Supervision
Iain Cooke and Giles Martin for Back to Black
Kle Savidge for Sister Midnight
Gary Welch and Jeanetter Rehnstrom for Kneecap

Best Original Music
Michael Asante for Kneecap
Burial for Bird
Stuart Earl for Unicorns
John Gurtler and Jan Miserre for The Outrun
Clint Mansell for Love Lies Bleeding

Best Sound
Louise Burton, Brendan Rehill, Aza Hand and Simon Kerr for Kneecap
Paul Davies, Andrew Stirk, Linda Forsen, Rose Bladh and Tim Burns for Love Lies Bleeding
Glen Freemantle for Civil War
Dominik Leube, Oscar Stiebitz, Jonathan Schorr, and Gregor Bonse for The Outrun
Mike Prestwood Smith, Csaba Major and Jimmy Boyle for Lee

Best Production Design
Robbie Cousins for Hoard
Jan Houllevigue for The Assessment
Katie Hickman for Love Lies Bleeding
Caty Maxey for Civil War
Nicola Moroney for Kneecap

To check the nominations at the official site go here.