The winners of the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) were announced at the annual ceremony at the Roundhouse in Camden. Hosts Lou Sanders and Harriet Kemsley and presenters including Carey Mulligan, Stephen Merchant, Ruth Wilson and Billy Crudup joined nominees and guests to celebrate the wealth of talent in British independent film and beyond.
Celia Imrie presented the award for Best British Independent Film to Pillion, Harry Lighton’s unconventional romantic comedy in which the lure of a charismatic biker challenges a timid man’s mundane life. First-time feature writer/director Lighton also won Best Debut Screenwriter sponsored by Film4. The film won four BIFAs in total, including the two previously announced craft wins for Best Costume Design and Best Make Up & Hair Design.
Best Director sponsored by Sky Cinema went to Akinola Davies Jr for his debut feature My Father’s Shadow, a story of two brothers who first come to understand their father at a pivotal moment in both his life and Nigerian history.
Tom Basden and Tim Key were awarded Best Screenplay sponsored by Apple Original Films for their debut feature The Ballad of Wallis Island which sees a faded folk musician and his former partner reluctantly reunite for an eccentric fan. The pair also won Best Joint Lead Performance.
The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) sponsored by BBC Film went to Cal McMau for his gripping prison drama Wasteman, tracing the tense bond between two men whose lives collide behind bars, starring David Jonsson and Tom Blyth.
Breakthrough Producer sponsored by Pinewood and Shepperton Studios went to Dhiraj Mahey for his work on social-realist coming-of-age drama Ish, which was also produced by Bennett McGhee.
Robert Aramayo won 2025’s Best Lead Performance award for his role as John Davison in I Swear, Kirk Jones’ touching feature chronicling the Tourette’s campaigner’s life. Best Supporting Performance went to Jay Lycurgo for Tim Mielants’s 1990s-set pressure-cooker school drama Steve, also starring Cillian
Murphy. Newcomer Posy Sterling won Breakthrough Performance sponsored by Netflix as a mother fighting for custody of her children in Daisy-May Hudson’s debut feature Lollipop. Previously announced, the Best Ensemble Performance award went to the cast of Warfare; Eddie Marsan presented the award to Will Poulter, Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn and Charles Melton on behalf of the ensemble.
Myrid Carten’s searing exploration of mental health and addition within her family, A Want in Her took an impressive three BIFAs – Best Feature Documentary sponsored by Intermission Film, The Raindance Maverick Award and Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary for Carten.
Best British Short Film was awarded to MAGID / ZAFAR, a masterful dissection of the relationship between two men amid rising tensions in a British-Pakistani takeaway.
The BIFA for Best International Independent Film sponsored by Champagne Taittinger went to Sentimental Value, Joaquim Trier’s intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art, marking Trier’s second BIFA win in this category, following The Worst Person in the World in 2022.
Winners of this year’s craft awards, announced earlier this month, were also celebrated at the ceremony and included two wins for Die My Love: Seamus McGarvey who won Best Cinematography sponsored by Kodak and Molinare and Raife Burchell and Ian Neil who won Best Music Supervision. Nathan Parker won his second BIFA for Best Production Design sponsored by ATC for Harvest. Grace Snell and Diandra Ferreira won Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up and Hair Design respectively for Pillion. Lauren Evans won Best Casting sponsored by Casting Society & Spotlight for I Swear. Tom Basden and Adem Ilhan with Best Original Music sponsored by Universal Music Publishing Group for The Ballad of Wallis Island. Warfare won three craft awards: Fin Oates took Best Editing, Simon Stanley-Clamp and Ryan Conder won Best Effects and Glenn Freemantle, Mitch Low, Howard Bargroff, Ben Barker and Richard Spooner were awarded Best Sound sponsored by Bleat, marking the second year in a row that Glenn Freemantle and Howard Bargroff have won this award, last year alongside Mary H Ellis for Civil War.
The 2025 Richard Harris Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Actor to British Film was presented to Emily Watson by her two-time co-star and friend Paul Mescal.
This year, the BIFA Special Jury Prize was presented to Warp Films by Jury members Genevieve O’Reilly and Daniel Mays. “For nearly 25 years, Warp Films has been the preeminent independent film and TV production company in the UK” the jury said. “Their commitment to telling raw and relevant stories, made by visionary writers and directors, is unflinching and uncompromising. From Dead Man’s Shoes and This Is England to Adolescence and Reunion, they have proved over and over that there is a genuine hunger for stories that tell us the unvarnished truth.”
And finally, the inaugural BIFA Cinema of the Year award sponsored by Kia went to The Magic Lantern Cinema in Tywyn, seeing off competition from over 130 entered cinemas from all over the UK. Steve Hicks, Marketing Director at Kia UK Limited said: “A true champion for British cinema, the British Independent Film Awards are a great way to recognise the very best cinemas in the UK today. More than 100,000 film fans have nominated their favourite venues, with huge congratulations to The Magic Lantern Cinema for being named the very best. Nothing compares to the ‘big screen’ experience, and the nominees for Cinema of the Year are those that put their local communities at the very heart of the action, creating a memorable and enjoyable experience time after time. It’s clear from these awards that British cinemagoers have a wealth of choice when it comes to watching films in a way which supports local businesses and communities.”
