Subversive Irish breakout pic Kneecap and Sasha Nathwani’s gentle yet ambitious debut Last Swim are among the titles that have nabbed mentions on the new talent longlists at this year’s British Independent Film Awards.
Both Kneecap and Last Swim pop up on the Douglas Hickox Best Debut Director Award longlist. Other nominees include Hoard, directed by Luna Carmoon, and Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, which debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
All four films also feature on the best screenplay longlist alongside Christopher Andrews’s Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott. Other pics on the screenplay longlist include The Ceremony by Jack King and Jed Hart’s Restless.
Overall, the longlists include 31 British features, with 20 fiction and 11 documentary features across four debut filmmaking categories. Within that, there are 13 first-time fiction feature directors, 16 first-time feature documentary directors, 11 first-time writers, and 19 breakthrough producers.
The final five nominees in all categories will be announced on Tuesday 5 November. Winners will be revealed at the BIFA awards ceremony on Sunday 8 December, which this year returns to the Roundhouse in Camden.
Check out the longlists below.
The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) sponsored by BBC Film
Amrou Al-Kadhi – Layla
Christopher Andrews – Bring Them Down
Luna Carmoon – Hoard
Lucy Cohen – Edge of Summer
James Krishna Floyd – Unicorns [also directed by Sally El Hosaini]
Stuart Gatt – Catching Dust
Karan Kandhari – Sister Midnight
Jack King – The Ceremony
Rob Morgan – Stopmotion
Sasha Nathwani – Last Swim
Rich Peppiatt – Kneecap
Daina O Pusić – Tuesday
Joshua Trigg – Satu – Year of the Rabbit
Best Debut Screenwriter sponsored by Film4
Christopher Andrews – Bring Them Down
Luna Carmoon – Hoard
James Krishna Floyd – Unicorns
Jed Hart – Restless
Karan Kandhari – Sister Midnight
Jack King – The Ceremony
Rich Peppiatt – Kneecap
Daina O Pusić – Tuesday
Sandhya Suri – Santosh
Mrs & Mr Thomas – The Assessment [also written by John Donnelly]
Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary
David Allen – Wilding
Georgia Bradburn, Lucy Walker, Benjamin Brown, Sam Chown Ahern, Robin Elliot Knowles – The Stimming Pool [also directed by Steven Eastwood]
Duncan Cowles – Silent Men
Carla J Easton, Blair Young – Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands
Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane – Grand Theft Hamlet
Manon Ouimet, Jacob Perlmutter – Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
Rachel Ramsay – Copa 71 [also directed by James Erskine]
Clair Titley – The Contestant
Franc Vissers – I’m Still Here
Breakthrough Producer sponsored by Pinewood & Shepperton Studios
Beth Allan – Tummy Monster
Hollie Bryan, Lucy Meer – The Ceremony
Mark David – Catching Dust [also produced by Stuart Gatt, John Katz, Edward R Pressman]
Balthazar de Ganay, James Bowsher – Santosh [also produced by Mike Goodridge, Alan McAlex]
Robert Ford – Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story [also produced by also produced by Ian Bonhôte, Lizzie Gillett]
Helen Gladders – Tuesday [also produced by Ivana MacKinnon, Oliver Roskill]
Savannah James-Bayly – Layla
Virginia Gilbert, Barry Castagnola – Reawakening
John McKay – Falling Into Place [also produced by Yvonne Wellie, Milena Klemke, Jakob Weydeman, Jonas Weydemann]
Nisha Mullea – Last Swim [also produced by Helen Simmons, Campbell Beaton, Bert Hamelinck, James Isilay, Sorcha Shepherd]
Jacob Swan Hyam – Bring Them Down [also produced by Julianne Ford, Ivana MacKinnon, Jean-Yves Roubin, Ruth Treacey, Cassandre Warnauts]
Ben Toye – Treading Water
Jeremy Warmsley, Chiara Ventura – Witches [also produced by Manon Ardisson]
Chloe White – The Stimming Pool [also produced by Steven Eastwood]
Rebecca Wolff – Grand Theft Hamlet [also produced by Julia Ton]
