BIFA crowns Renée and "For Sama" makes history!

by Cláudio Alves

Renée's coming for that Oscar.The nitty-gritty of awards season is upon us. The same names and films are bound to be repeated over and over again until the high holy night of the Oscars. Thankfully, not all awards organizations follow the party line when it comes to rewarding cinematic excellence. In other words, not everyone wants to predict the Oscars. Some still have originality, a sense of variety and the desire to shine a light on films far from the Academy’s radar. Such is the case of the British Independent Film Awards, which were given out today in London.

However, as you can see by this piece's title, it’s not all out of left-field choices. Renée Zellweger just won her first big award for Judy and many more are sure to come. Even so, the biggest winner of the night is the sort of film that (as much as it saddens us) will probably never come close to a Best Picture Oscar. We’re talking about a foreign-language documentary directed by a woman…

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BIFA loves "Wild Rose" and "David Copperfield"

British Independent Film Awards, or BIFA for short, have announced their nominations for the 2019 film year. Like the Gothams and Spirits they are juried which means a small group of people decide various categories before the entire membership votes on the winners. Strangely, despite that they focused on a small pool of films (the leaders, Wild Rose and The Personal History of David Copperfield have a staggering 21 nominations between them. Yikes! 

Our friend and sometimes Smackdown guest Guy Lodge was on the panel this year and here are their choices.

Best British Independent Film

• Bait, Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, Linn Waite

• For Sama, Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts

• The Personal History Of David Copperfield, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Kevin Loader The Souvenir Joanna Hogg, Luke Schiller

• The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg, Luke Schiller

• Wild Rose, Tom Harper, Nicole Taylor, Faye Ward

Bait and David Copperfield have not yet arrived stateside. The latter is coming in 2020 and with lots of name actors it will get some attention (plus it's quite funny) but we had to look up Bait to see what it was. We must keep an eye out due to the BIFA love...

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