The winners of the 2023 British Independent Film Awards were announced live from Old Billingsgate, London on Sunday 3rd December 2023, with Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers earning the Best British Independent Film award on a successful night for the relationship drama.

In a ceremony hosted by Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Lolly Adefope, All of Us Strangers took home British Independent Film Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Music Supervision and Best Editing, with 2023 Oscar nominee Paul Mescal (Aftersun) being named the joint winner for Best Supporting Performance for his part in the film.

Justine Triet’s 2023 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall was awarded the title of Best International Independent Film, earning the accolade over competing titles Fallen Leaves, Fremont, Monster and Past Lives.

Mia McKenna-Bruce won the award for Best Lead Performance for her part in How to Have Sex, with casting director Isabella Odoffin also earning an accolade for Best Casting.

The full list of 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs):

Best British Independent Film – All of Us Strangers
Femme
How to Have Sex
Rye Lane
Scrapper

Best International Independent Film sponsored by Champagne Taittinger – Anatomy of a Fall
Fallen Leaves
Fremont
Monster
Past Lives

Best Director sponsored by Sky Cinema – Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)
Raine Allen-Miller (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Screenplay sponsored by Apple Original Films – Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)
Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Lead Performance – Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex)
Jodie Comer (The End We Start From)
Tia Nomore (Earth Mama)
Nabhaan Rizwan (In Camera)
Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers)
Tilda Swinton (The Eternal Daughter)

Best Supporting Performance – Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers)
Ritu Arya (Polite Society)
Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers)
Samuel Bottomley (How to Have Sex)
Alexandra Burke (Pretty Red Dress)
Amir El-Masry (In Camera)
Clair Foy (All of Us Strangers)
Alia Shawkat (Drift)
Shaun Thomas (How to Have Sex)
Katherine Waterston (The End We Start From)

Best Joint Lead Performance – Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George MacKay (Femme)
Lola Campbell, Harris Dickinson (Scrapper)
David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane)

The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) sponsored by BBC Film – Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama)
Raine Allen-Miller (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Holly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Breakthrough Producer sponsored by Pinewood and Shepperton Studios – Theo Barrowclough (Scrapper)
Georgia Goggin (Pretty Red Dress)
Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo (Rye Lane)
Gannesh Rajah (If the Streets Were on Fire)
Chi Thai (Raging Grace)

Breakthrough Performance sponsored by Netflix – Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane)
Le’Shantey Bonsu (Girl)
Lola Campbell (Scrapper)
Priya Kansara (Polite Society)
Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex)

Best Debut Screenwriter sponsored by Film4 – Nida Manzoor (Polite Society)
Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary – Chloe Abrahams (The Taste of Mango)
Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn (Another Baby)
Ella Glendining (Is There Anybody Out There?)
Alice Russell (If the Streets Were on Fire)
Christopher Sharp (Bobi Wine: The People’s President)

The Raindance Maverick Award – If the Streets Were on Fire
Is There Anybody Out There?
Name Me Lawand
Raging Grace
Red Herring

Best Feature Documentary sponsored by Intermission Film – If the Streets Were on Fire
Another Body
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
Lyra
Occupied City

Best British Short Film – Festival of Slaps
Christopher At Sea
Lions
Muna
The Talent

Best Casting sponsored by Casting Society & Spotlight – Isabella Odoffin (How to Have Sex) 
Shaheen Baig (Scrapper)
Kharmel Cochrane (Rye Lane)
Kahleen Crawford (All of Us Strangers)
Salome Oggenfuss, Geraldine Barón, Abby Harri (Earth Mama)

Best Cinematography sponsored by Harbor & Kodak – Jamie D. Ramsay (All of Us Strangers)
Olan Collardy (Rye Lane)
Suzie Lavelle (The End We Start From)
Molly Manning Walker (Scrapper)
James Rhodes (Femme)

Best Costume Design – Buki Ebiesuwa (Femme)
George Buxton (How to Have Sex)
Oliver Cronk (Scrapper)
Cynthia Lawrence-John (Rye Lane)
PC Williams (The End We Start From)

Best Editing – Jonathan Alberts (All of Us Strangers) 
Victoria Boydell (Rye Lane)
Paul Carlin (Bobi Wine: The People’s President)
Avdhesh Mohla (High & Low – John Galliano)
Arttu Salmi (The End We Start From)

Best Effects – Jonathan Gales, Richard Baker (The Kitchen)
Paddy Eason (Polite Society)
Theodor Flo-Groeneboom (The End We Start From)

Best Music Supervision – Connie Farr (All of Us Strangers)
Ciara Elwis (Femme)
David Fish (Rye Lane)

Best Make-Up & Hair Design sponsored by The Wall Group – Marie Deehan (Femme)
Zoe Clare Brown (All of Us Strangers)
Claire Carter (Polite Society)
Natasha Lawes (How to Have Sex)
Bianca Simone Scott (Rye Lane)

Best Original Music sponsored by Universal Music Publishing Group – Kwes (Rye Lane)
Adam Janota Bzowski (Femme)
Patrick Jonsson (Scrapper)
Anna Meredith (The End We Start From)
Ré Olunuga (Girl)

Best Production Design sponsored by ATC & Broadsword – Nathan Parker (The Kitchen)
Laura Ellis Cricks (The End We Start From)
Sarah Finlay (All of Us Strangers)
Elena Muntoni (Scrapper)
Anna Rhodes (Rye Lane)

Best Sound supported by Halo – Mark Jenkin (Enys Men)
Scrapper
How to Have Sex
All of Us Strangers
The End We Start From

Per BIFA.

Enys Men (2022)
Director: Mark Jenkin
Screenwriter: Mark Jenkin
Starring: Mary Woodvine, John Woodvine, Edward Rowe

With his breakthrough feature, 2019’s Bait, Mark Jenkin earned plenty of critical acclaim, crafting an intimate drama so specific to a small area of England that it spoke to many the world over. Naturally, after making such an impact, many of his newly found fans and peers awaited the sophomore effort – or the dreaded second album, as Jenkin himself referred to it. Almost four years later and the new film, Enys Men, can make or break the director’s legacy.

With Bait, Mark Jenkin crafted a film so unique with its post-synced sound, blunt dialogue and bare yet stylistic photography (thanks in no small part to the use of a vintage black and white camera), that he instantly placed his own directorial mark on the film. With Enys Men, Jenkin revisits this style and progresses it appropriately.

All the auteurisms from Jenkin’s previous work remain, and they charm just as easily. However, it is the new additions that truly put a spell on anyone willing to give this British independent film a chance. Enys Men is shot in gorgeous colour film photography, creating not just an accurate representation of 70s British cinema, but casting a wonderful colour palette across the screen that is a beauty to behold.

Enys Men is much more stripped back (in large part due to lockdown procedures during the pandemic) than Bait was. The plot of the film – if you could say it has one – finds a lone woman (Mary Woodvine) isolated on an island off the Cornish coast circa 1973. The actual reasoning for the woman’s stay on the island is unknown and never questioned, though her daily observations of a rare flower hint towards some form of research. 

Both the woman and the rock she inhabits are one and the same; two lone vessel’s battered and shaped by time and the natural world that surrounds them, each showing signs of past traumas only they could know. Thus, once the past, present and future traumas of the woman and the island begin to coalesce, the mysteries of both do not unravel, but instead tighten up, culminating in a 90-minute presentation that will leave you puzzled and without the ability to forget this movie anytime soon.

Jenkin opens up room for interpreting his film through ghostly images that appear on the island, in props, and even through the superstitious routines the woman re-enacts every day (checking the temperature of the flowers, throwing a rock down an old mine shaft, for example). Everyone will leave with their own reading – are they all ghosts, flashbacks, flash forwards, maybe even the woman’s own mind deteriorating? – but that is the very pull of the movie, the intrigue. There will surely be new evidence found upon each viewing that will help to enrich any theories you may find yourself gravitating towards originally, and this is a film that is bound to represent different things to different people.

It is in the very mystery of the movie that Enys Men’s horror elements arise. Just as the woman is seemingly alone on the island, you too feel alone in the cinema, transfixed on the screen, scanning every corner of the image in the hopes of finding any clue that might help you to understand what is happening, completely unaware of what is beside you (or worse, behind you). 

Throughout the film Jenkin focuses on certain routines or objects, pointing our attention towards a potential clue only to cut us away from our fixed gaze, usually to a horrifying image or to an ear-splitting sound, in a cruel abuse of storyteller power.

Perhaps the greatest mark of a filmmaker’s talent is their ability to adapt their use of cinematic language to each new story they tell. It is in this ability to adapt that Mark Jenkin presents himself as an incredibly intelligent filmmaker, evolving the style of his feature debut into something equally as recognisable whilst being entirely unique in its own right.

Enys Men is a chillingly atmospheric horror that embeds itself into your mind just like the traumas of its main character, leaving you with more questions than answers but one universal interpretation: Mark Jenkin is making films unlike those made by anyone else.

Score: 20/24

Growing up as a wee boy who wanted to make films in Scotland was not easy. Though the state of Scottish cinema is much healthier today, making the decision to study film after leaving high school in 2015 was not as easy as you would think. At the time, as far as mainstream Scottish films would go, Sunshine on Leith and Brave were pretty much it. At least that’s what I, a cinema-obsessed seventeen-year-old, was led to believe.

Luckily for me, it was that summer in between leaving high school and entering college that I would discover the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Attending live Q&As, meeting the likes of Haskell Wexler, Seamus McGarvey and Ewan McGregor (who, not only had I grown up with, but was the star of the greatest Scottish film ever made, in my eyes) and seeing films with hundreds of others in attendance, was like something I had never experienced before. I knew right away that I needed more of it. Two weeks every summer where I could breathe, eat and sleep movies – how on earth had I gone my whole life without realising that an entire world of cinema was right on my doorstep? 

The Edinburgh International Film Festival introduced me to films from all around the world, brilliant pieces that I may have never seen if not for the festival. More importantly, it showed me that Scottish films were being made, and it also gave me a place to see them. Over the years I would discover such delights as John McPhail’s Anna and the Apocalypse, Ninian Doff’s Get Duked and Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. 

Aside from cementing my choice to study film, both EIFF and its home the Edinburgh Filmhouse did so much for me as far as film education and my own career in film go; EIFF introduced me to one of the very first international films I saw (The 400 Blows), sparked my interest in film programming and hosting Q&As, screened films I had directed and acted in, allowed me to share a room with brilliant filmmakers and actors such as John Landis, Joe Dante, Oliver Stone, Kevin Bacon and Richard E. Grant. Furthermore, these institutions allowed me to see classics on the big screen for the very first time – movies like The Seventh Seal, The Exorcist, There Will Be Blood, A Nightmare on Elm Street, 2001: A Space Odyssey – as well as providing a venue for new found favourites such as Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Bait, Uncut Gems, Spencer and Licorice Pizza. 

With all that EIFF and Filmhouse introduced me to, you can only imagine the devastation I felt on the morning of the 6th of October 2022 when I heard the news that both EIFF and Filmhouse had ceased trading immediately. How could two things that mean so much to me simply just stop? There wasn’t even a chance to say goodbye…

The history of both institutions, but specifically Edinburgh International Film Festival, is astonishing. It is the longest continually running film festival in the world, beginning in 1947 and running until this year. It is a landmark that keeps Scotland on the map, a cultural landstone that has helped Edinburgh remain famous as a city renowned for its art and culture. The influence that the Edinburgh International Film Festival has had on film culture not only in Scotland but the world over is undeniable, bringing filmmakers such as Orson Welles, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Kathryn Bigelow and Bong Joon-Ho to the capital and introducing films like Jour de fête, Pather Panchali, Wild Strawberries, Easy Rider, Alien, Blade Runner, E.T. and Reservoir Dogs to the UK and the world. John Huston once said “I rarely go to film festivals. The only one as such that’s worth a damn is Edinburgh. My god, it’s unique”. It was always easy to see why.

I am not the only one affected by the news. Many filmmakers have come out in support of both institutions. Edgar Wright tweeted “The @edfilmfest was the first festival to ever show a film of mine and I have had so much support and great screenings with the amazing @Filmhouse cinemas since, so this is a terrible blow. My heart goes out to those who love film and have lost jobs. Hoping for a resolution soon”. French Animator Sylvian Chomet stated in an interview that the closures were “a bitter disappointment for the city of Edinburgh and its wonderful people.” Before a screening of Aftersun at the London Film Festival, Charlotte Wells made a tribute to both EIFF and the Filmhouse in saying “These are spaces that mean a great deal to me, it’s where I saw my 1st film, it’s where this, my first feature, played. I wouldn’t be standing here without them”. Further filmmakers such as Mark Jenkin and Mark Cousins have also voiced their disappointment, with Cousins himself writing an article for The Guardian on the matter.

Many others have taken the news as a call to arms, organising groups designed to help save the Filmhouse, hosting candlelit vigils outside of Edinburgh Filmhouse, and starting a petition that now has over 20,000 signatures. Furthermore, the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she would engage with Edinburgh city councils and the financing entity Creative Scotland to determine any paths forward to salvage the institutions.

The outpouring of support is a good sign and certainly shows that many do care about both the Filmhouse and EIFF, but whilst the Filmhouse remains closed the threat remains. Not only to the Filmhouse but to cinema in general. Earlier this year Cineworld Group plc announced that they were filing for bankruptcy, putting Cineworld, Picturehouse Cinemas and Regal Cinemas all at risk. Thankfully all three remain trading to this day, but in the year 2022 there is a very clear and very real threat to what we have long understood to be cinema.

Martin Scorsese recently denounced what he calls the “focus on numbers” in the film world, calling it “repulsive” and “insulting”. This is a world that runs on money and so the money that a film and a cinema makes is important. If one type of movie makes a lot of money then Hollywood bankrolls more of that kind of movie – if it doesn’t, then so long hopeful cinematic universe. Moreover, cinemas rely on films making a lot of money; more people buying tickets and memberships mean that the cinemas are earning money, and the cinemas earning money means they can afford the cost to run the cinema itself, and being able to do that allows the cinema to show more movies, and so on and so forth. 

It is this focus on figures that leads Scorsese to believe that “cinema is devalued, demeaned, belittled from all sides, not necessarily the business side but certainly the art”.

Look back at the past twenty-one years of the worldwide box office. Every year the top 5 (and sometimes even more than that) are not only major blockbusters but major blockbusters almost exclusively designed for audiences 12 and under. Harry Potter, Shrek, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Toy Story, Marvel. These are all very much films in which audiences of all ages can attend, but are designed for children to beg their parents to go see, doubling the tickets sold and money made in one foul swoop. 

To the outside, this change clearly works. Movies are making more money than ever, the ten highest-grossing movies of all time is constantly changing, the U.S. domestic box office recorded its highest ever earnings only four years ago. That’s all great, but only certain types of movies are making that much money. 

Imagine if Jackson Pollock’s paintings were selling for the highest amount so Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso decided to paint only in the style of Pollock. You’d tire of seeing the same thing, and these other artists wouldn’t stand out for their originality. As a culture, as a society, we’d be left without these great artists and the uniqueness of their work, we’d be lesser as a whole. 

Occasionally you’ll get smaller and more unique films making good money at the box office, such as Everything Everywhere All At Once or Get Out, but the gap in overall gross between films like these and films like, say, Thor: Love and Thunder is astonishing. Before 2000, films like Saving Private Ryan, The Fugitive, A Few Good Men, Pretty Woman, Ghost, Rain Man were all top ten highest-grossing films of their respective years. They feel like they are a million miles away. Would they possibly be in the same position today?

The current era isn’t without quality filmmaking either. There are brilliant films out there that go practically unnoticed at the box office, films like You Were Never Really Here, Dope, Blindspotting, The Vast of Night, Never Look Away. These are the kinds of films that are most likely to screen at a place like the Edinburgh Filmhouse or the Edinburgh International Film Festival. 

Film is an art form, not a commodity. Not everyone is going to like the same moving pictures and that is fine, but there needs to be a variety. Such places that you could find variety were Filmhouse and EIFF. With that being said we must support independent cinemas, cherish their unique approaches and the independent films they often showcase; these are the few places that offer what you will not experience anywhere else in the world, the institutions that support and celebrate the work that makes up the majority but is seen by the minority.

The future of both Filmhouse and Edinburgh International Film Festival are uncertain, but if they are given the second life they deserve then we must hold them near and dear to our hearts and support them however we can.

Regardless of what happens, this wee boy from Scotland will be forever indebted to both EIFF and the Filmhouse, as both institutions played a major role in the movie fanatic I am today; widening my movie palette, strengthening my passion for cinema, providing me with numerous opportunities that I never would have had otherwise and, most importantly of all, helping me to realise that a life in the movies was possible where I was from and not just a pipe dream. Thank you Filmhouse and thank you Edinburgh Film Festival.