BIFA Awards: ‘Pillion’ Walks Away With Four Wins

The British Independent Film Awards, or the BIFA Awards, have now been completed. This year, Harry Lighton’s Pillion took home four awards. The film, which stars Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling, follows a mellow, suburban man who becomes the submissive of a motorcyclist. It won awards for costume design and makeup and hair, one for best debut screenwriter and one for best film. During Lighton’s acceptance speech, he recalled the moment when his short film was nominated for a BIFA in 2017. He said, “I didn’t win, and I got incredibly drunk and spent the rest of the evening kind of burning industry bridges. I’m going to start by saying thank you to BIFA for not blacklisting me.”

Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s Warfare walked away with a handful of wins in technical categories. These included best editing, best effects, best ensemble performance and best sound. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value earned the award for best international film. Eskil Vogt, who co-wrote the film and accepted the award on Trier’s behalf, said, “Well, we have to soak it up now, and that’s what Joachim is doing — going from one place to another and talking about the film. And that’s the one disadvantage of attention around the film…is that we can’t really start working on the next one.”

You can view the whole list of BIFA winners below.

Best British Independent Film
Pillion

Best British Short Film
Magid / Zafar

Best Casting
Lauren Evans, I Swear

Best Cinematography
Seamus McGarvey, Die My Love

Best Costume Design
Grace Snell, Pillion

Best Debut Screenwriter
Harry Lighton, Pillion

Best Debut Director
Cal McMau, Wasteman

Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary
Myrid Carten, A Want in Her

Best Director
Akinola Davies Jr., My Father’s Shadow

Best Editing
Fin Oates, Warfare

Best Effects
Simon Stanley-Clamp and Ryan Conder, Warfare

Best Ensemble Performance
Joseph Quinn, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Finn Bennett, Charles Melton, and Kit Connor, Warfare

Best Feature Documentary
A Want in Her

Best International Independent Film
Sentimental Value

Best Joint Lead
Tom Basden and Tim Key, The Ballad of Wallis Island

Best Lead Performance
Robert Aramayo, I Swear

Best Breakthrough Performance
Posy Sterling, Lollipop

Best Breakthrough Producer
Dhiraj Mahey, Ish

Best Makeup and Hair Design
Diandra Ferreira, Pillion

Best Music Supervision
Raife Burchell and Ian Neil, Die My Love

Best Original Music
Tom Basden and Adem Ilhan, The Ballad of Wallis Island

Best Production Design
Nathan Parker, Harvest

Best Screenplay
Tom Basden and Tim Key, The Ballad of Wallis Island

Best Sound
Glenn Freemantle, Mitch Low, Howard Bargroff, Ben Barker and Richard Spooner, Warfare

Best Supporting Performance
Jay Lycurgo, Steve

The Raindance Maverick Award
Myrid Carten, A Want in Her

Special Jury Prize
Warp Films

BIFA Cinema of the Year Award
The Magic Lantern Cinema in Tywyn

Richard Harris Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Actor to British Film
Emily Watson