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.

How to Have Sex (2023)
Director: Molly Manning Walker
Screenwriter: Molly Manning Walker
Starring: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Enva Lewis, Lara Peake, Daisy Jelley, Laura Ambler, Shaun Thomas, Samuel Bottomley

Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes 2023, How to Have Sex follows three 16-year-olds on a girls’ trip to Malia. Molly Manning Walker’s riveting directorial debut captures those formative teenage years, with a focus on female friendship and first sexual experiences, specifically around the subject of consent.

Best friends Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) fully embrace their first taste of post-GCSE freedom, in a joyous bubble of drinking and partying. While the film navigates dark territory, it is also full of great humour, perfectly depicting the emotional rollercoaster of being a teenage girl and the messy silliness of Brits abroad.

But beneath the glittery, ecstatic haze of uninhibited freedom, Walker sustains a looming sense of something sinister, and this darker area is explored later in the film.

How to Have Sex expertly captures the experience of being 16, transporting us into Tara’s position. The close-ups of her face reflect both euphoria and overwhelm, as she navigates exciting but daunting untrodden territory. Thrust into an ultra-sexualized world where men receive blowjobs onstage at nightclubs and prizes are awarded for sexual conquests, the party island is a sensory overload. These close-ups are most poignantly used during moments of sexual intimacy, conveying Tara’s emotional experience, rather than the physical act itself.

The presentation of female sexuality is a stark contrast to films like Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers; the voyeuristic gaze of his camera constantly leering over the teenage girls’ half-naked bodies. Thankfully, the male gaze is purposefully absent in Walker’s film, and in the wrong hands, such intimate scenes might have been handled far less sensitively.

Molly Manning Walker’s film highlights the pressure to have sex; whether that pressure is from society, friends, or the pressure we put on ourselves. As the more sexually experienced Skye tells Tara, “if you don’t get laid on this holiday, you never will”. The film demonstrates how losing one’s virginity can be seen as a goal to be achieved, no matter what the potential cost.

Walker discussed her intention behind the film’s theme in an interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian. “For me, consent has become too black and white in terms of ‘she said yes, so it’s fine’…that doesn’t always work – it’s not enough”. The film does a great job of exploring the nuances of consent, rather than a binary presentation, particularly the subtleties of external pressures and coercion. Walker avoids blaming men alone, explaining in the same interview: “not taking away all blame or guilt, but I know that it’s not all their fault… it’s the way that society has brought them up”.

Walker’s personal experience heavily influenced the film, drawing on her own wild teenage holidays, as well as a sexual assault at the age of 16. “Some of these holidays are still the best memories of my life, but there are other complicated memories within them”, she told Woman’s Hour. The film importantly acknowledges that a traumatic event does not need to eradicate the joyful ones, nor define someone as a “victim”. Walker added that “as a British society we love to not talk about things”. She hopes to take the film to schools, in order to open up important conversations about consent.

While everyone’s first sexual encounter is different, the film manages to speak to a universal female experience that is painfully relatable. Mia McKenna-Bruce’s captivating lead performance and the film’s urgent message makes How to Have Sex a total must-see.

Score: 22/24

Written by Gala Woolley

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