BIFA 2025: Celebrating Excellence

An eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island tries to make his fantasies come true by getting his favorite musicians to perform at his home.

Best Screenplay – Tom Basden & Tim Key

Best Joint Lead Performance – Tim Key & Tom Basden

Best Original Music – Tom Basden & Adem Ilhan

A directionless man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.

Best British Independent Film

Best Debut Screenwriter – Harry Lighton

Best Costume Design – Grace Snell

Best Make-Up & Hair Design – Diandra Ferreira

John Davidson: diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome at a young age which alienated him from his peers, he struggled with a condition few people had witnessed.

Best Lead Performance – Robert Aramayo

Best Casting – Lauren Evans

Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.

Best Director – Akinola Davies Jr

A platoon of Navy SEALs embark on a dangerous mission in Ramadi, Iraq, with the chaos and brotherhood of war retold through their memories of the event.

Best Ensemble Performance – D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Joseph Quinn & Charles Melton

Best Editing – Fin Oates

Best Effects – Simon Stanley-Clamp & Ryan Conder

Best Sound – Warfare sound team

Follows headteacher Steve battling for his reform college's survival while managing his mental health. Concurrently, troubled student Shy navigates his violent tendencies and fragility, torn between his past and future prospects.

Best Supporting Performance – Jay Lycurgo

Molly, a young woman released from prison, struggles to regain custody of her children. When she bumps into her childhood friend Amina the two women soon realize their only chance is to join forces and take destiny into their own hands.

Breakthrough Performance – Posy Sterling

Myrid searches for her missing mother in Ireland, facing family disputes over property, life-threatening secrets; her journey explores love's influence and struggle for freedom.

Best Feature Documentary

Best Debut Director Feature Documentary – Myrid Carten

The Raindance Maverick Award

Textured with russet reds and pollinic yellows, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s spellbinding allegory gleans an atmospheric folk tale from a rural idyll. As landowners sow the seeds of modern capital, Sean Price Williams reaps horror and beauty from the earth with swirling, immersive cinematography.

Best Production Design - Nathan Parker

Grace, a writer and young mother, is slowly slipping into madness. Locked away in an old house in and around Montana, we see her acting increasingly agitated and erratic, leaving her companion, Jackson, increasingly worried and helpless.

Best Cinematography - Seamus McGarvey

Best Music Supervision - Ian Neil & Raife Burchell

Tensions arise amidst the heat of a busy Pakistani takeaway.

Best British Short Film

Two best friends face the end of childhood when racial profiling and a traumatic police stop-and-search tear them apart, teaching Ish about letting go in a society where brown boys are constantly watched.

Breakthrough Producer – Dhiraj Mahey

An intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art.

Best International Independent Film