The drama ’71, set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, has picked up the most nominations for this year’s British Independent Film Awards, including nods for Best British Independent Film, Best Director for Yann Demange and Best Actor for Jack O’Connell.
Pride, about a group of gay activists who raised money for striking miners in the 1980s, picked up seven nominations, among them, for Best British Independent Film, Best Director for Matthew Warchus, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress for Imelda Staunton and Best Supporting Actor for Ben Schnetzer, who’s also in the running for the Most Promising Newcomer prize.
He’ll be up against Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, who picked up the corresponding award last month at the London Film Festival, for Catch Me Daddy, which has five nominations, alongside Frank and the JMW Turner biopic Mr Turner. John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary has four.
The BIFAs, set up by the Raindance film organisation in 1998, honour films with budgets under twenty million industry standard dollars, largely funded from the UK and screened to a paying audience in Britain – either on general release or at a film festival – between December last year and the end of this month.
The winners of the British Independent Film Awards, chosen by a jury chaired by the Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper, will be announced at a ceremony on 7th December at Old Billingsgate on the Thames. Hooper, whose The King’s Speech won five BIFAs in 2010, before going on to win big at the Oscars, said, “It has been an extremely strong year for filmmaking here in Britain and I am looking forward to helping the very best of this year’s independent films, get the recognition they deserve.”
The full list of nominees is:
BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM
’71
Calvary
Mr Turner
Pride
The Imitation Game
BEST DIRECTOR
John Michael McDonagh – Calvary
Lenny Abrahamson – Frank
Matthew Warchus – Pride
Mike Leigh – Mr Turner
Yann Demange – ’71
THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD [BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR]
Daniel Wolfe, Matthew Wolfe – Catch Me Daddy
Hong Khaou – Lilting
Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard – 20,000 Days on Earth
Morgan Matthews – X+Y
Yann Demange – ’71
BEST SCREENPLAY
Graham Moore – The Imitation Game
Gregory Burke – ’71
John Michael McDonagh – Calvary
Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan – Frank
Stephen Beresford – Pride
BEST ACTRESS
Alicia Vikander – Testament of Youth
Cheng Pei Pei – Lilting
Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Belle
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game
Sameena Jabeen Ahmed – Catch Me Daddy
BEST ACTOR
Asa Butterfield – X+Y
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Brendan Gleeson – Calvary
Jack O’Connell – ’71
Timothy Spall – Mr Turner
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Dorothy Atkinson – Mr Turner
Imelda Staunton – Pride
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Frank
Sally Hawkins – X+Y
Sienna Guillory – The Goob
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Andrew Scott – Pride
Ben Schnetzer – Pride
Michael Fassbender – Frank
Rafe Spall – X+Y
Sean Harris – ‘71
MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER
Ben Schnetzer – Pride
Cara Delevingne – The Face of An Angel
Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Belle
Liam Walpole – The Goob
Sameena Jabeen Ahmed – Catch Me Daddy
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION
’71
20,000 Days on Earth
Catch Me Daddy
Lilting
The Goob
BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Chris Wyatt – Editing – ’71
Dick Pope – Cinematography – Mr Turner
Robbie Ryan – Cinematography – Catch Me Daddy
Stephen Rennicks – Music – Frank
Tat Radcliffe – Cinematography – ’71
BEST DOCUMENTARY
20,000 Days on Earth
Next Goal Wins
Night Will Fall
The Possibilities Are Endless
Virunga
BEST BRITISH SHORT
Crocodile
Emotional Fusebox
Keeping Up With The Joneses
Slap
The Kármán Line
BEST INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM
Blue Ruin
Boyhood
Fruitvale Station
Ida
The Badadook
THE RAINDANCE AWARD
Flim: The Movie…
Gregor
Luna
Keeping Rosy
The Beat Beneath My Feet