The British Independent Film Awards are making changes to celebrate their 25th anniversary by becoming gender neutral in their acting categories, as they also add new acting awards, a new first-time director category for feature films and two new music awards. .
By eliminating the “actor” and “actress” awards, BIFA joins other organizations that have recently made the switch, including the Berlin Film Festival, the MTV Movie Awards and BRITs.
BIFA says it will now award five awards for acting: Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Performance, Best Joint Leading Performance, for two (or especially three) performances that are the film’s common focus, and Best Ensemble. The Breakthrough Performance Award established by the BIFA (which was not yet gender specific) remains unchanged.
The Lead and Supporting Act categories will have up to 10 candidates, while the Joint Lead and Ensemble Act tenders will have up to five.
Additionally, BIFA is adding a category for Best New Director – Documentary Film to welcome Douglas Hickox’s award for Best New Director. The latter will now be reserved for artistic performances. The Best Music Award, which previously recognized both original composition and music supervision, will be split into Best Original Music and Best Music Supervision.
BIFA Directors Amy Gustin and Deanna Wallace commented: “We are delighted to be launching BIFA’s new expanded award categories, which will more fully capture the range of outstanding performances and acting talents in British independent cinema and allow us to celebrate again. more. talent. than before. “
Nominations for 2022 will be announced on November 3 and the ceremony will take place on December 4.
BIFA has also welcomed new members to its Board of Directors, including award-winning producer and chief engineer Dominic Buchanan; Carmen Thompson, cultural curator of We Are Parable and producer of Aya Films; and Tim Platt, Head of Marketing and Audience Growth at the British Film Institute.
New dates confirmed for the BIFA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training, which will take place from July to January 2023. The training program includes courses against harassment and bullying, fair work in the workplace and courses on unconscious bias. It is supported by the ScreenSkills Film Skills Fund with a contribution from British film production. Also new for 2022 is virtual production planning and budgeting in partnership with Treehouse Digital, with support from ScreenSkills under the BFI Future Film Skills program, using funding from the National Lottery.
Source: Deadline
