When the British Independent Film Awards recently unveiled its list of 2025 nominees, there were cheers from within the U.K. industry over the number of first-time filmmakers dominating the categories. Akinola Davies Jr’s “My Father’s Shadow” and Harry Lighton’s “Pillion” — both feature debuts — led the pack of nominated films, while there was also plenty of love for actor-turned-filmmaker Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin” and Laura Carreira’s “On Falling.”
Whichever way the trophies are handed out at the BIFAs ceremony this Sunday at London’s Roundhouse, having so many newcomers battling for the top gongs of best British independent film, best director and best screenplay fits right in the BIFA wheelhouse of supporting rising talent right at the start of their careers.
But amid the celebrations there were also murmurings of discontent on social media when it came to the lead and supporting performance categories, which have been gender-neutral starting with the 2022 awards. Of 12 slots available (six in each), woman only managed to secure two spaces — Jennifer Lawrence for her lead role in “Die My Love” (amusingly the first BIFA nod for the Oscar winner and arguably one of the most famous Hollywood stars) and Maxine Peake for supporting in “I Swear.”
The BIFAs has often been trendsetters — or, as they often term it, “guinea pigs” — when it comes to categories. They were the first film awards in the U.K. to introduce a casting award, something later followed by the BAFTAs and — now — the Oscars. And while they can’t claim to be the first to introduce gender-neutral performance categories (although their breakthrough performance award has always been this way), its did announce its plans merely weeks before the Independent Spirit Awards said it intended to do the same.
But is this year’s male domination of those categories an indication that it’s a decision that needs to be reassessed?
Not so, claim Deena Wallace and Amy Gustin, who co-head the BIFAs. In fact, they argue that the latest crop of performance nominations are a complete swing against the usual BIFA grain.
“This is actually a massive anomaly for us,” says Gustin. “Normally it’s way the other way — and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody says, look at these women shining through and the men not getting a look-in. But as soon as it’s the other way, the criticism comes.”
The stats don’t lie. Last year, for lead performance it was the exact opposite, with five women and one man. Overall, since it became gender-neutral, that category has served up 15 woman nominated to five men (with all three winners woman). In supporting, it’s 15 women nominated to 10 men (the category previously allowed for more nominees) — and in 2022 there was just one man among 8 women. There’s also the joint lead performance category — also added in 2022 — which this year includes four woman and two men.
In fact, since BIFA’s 2022 gender-neutral switch, of the 67 performers nominated across lead, supporting and joint lead categories, there have been 39 women and 28 men, 58% in favour of women.
“So actually this year is a bit correction,” says Wallace. “It gets us to closer to 50/50 over the three years. But it’s still not there yet.”
Like all film awards bodies, the BIFAs are at the very end of the actual filmmaking process, with any notable gender skew more indicative of an industry issue or trend rather than any major fault of a voting system or category arrangement (although online critics rarely see it this way, as the BAFTAs can attest to following the #BAFTASoWhite backlash in 2020). 2025 may indeed be unusually man-heavy in terms of BIFA performance nominations, but Wallace notes that the 2025 submissions for those categories was unusually man-heavy — a figure that was “well over” 60% of the overall across lead, joint lead and supporting.
“Who knows whether this is a trend, whether this is because there are more male led films being commissioned,” she adds. “But we are slightly able to be a canary in the coal mine for things like that. Where you have the two gender split categories, any trend like that is masked. We’ll have to wait and look back at it over a longer period, but you wouldn’t notice it if it was split.”
And where many complaints about a male-skewed imbalance among nominees are often pegged to a body of voters that is overwhelmingly male, at the BIFAs — once again — it’s the opposite. “There are loads more women voting for the BIFAs than there are men,” asserts Wallace. This year, across more than 600 nominations voters, 58% percent are women, while in the performance subgroup that decides the nominees, 68% were woman and non-binary. “So it’s not like there are loads of lads making all these decisions.”
While there are no major tweaks to the main categories this year, there is a new addition in the form of the Cinema of the Year award, celebrating the best independent cinemas in the U.K. It’s not an award likely to be of much concern to watchers surveying the lay of the land as awards season shifts up a gear, but it’s an addition Gustin says was “massive” for the BIFAs, being their first ever public vote.
“We just didn’t know if anyone would care or how familiar cinemas were with us, and thought, maybe we’ll get 40 cinemas in,” she says. In the end, more than 130 applied. And when it came to the actual voting, more than 100,000 votes were submitted (putting to the test a bespoke system built by partners Print.Work).
“But people weren’t just voting, but also leaving comments and love letters to their cinemas,” says Gustin. “We’ve been sending all the feedback back to the cinemas and they’re like ‘Oh my God, this is making me cry.’ So it’s been really nice and adorable.”