2025 British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) Craft Winners: ‘Die My Love,’ ‘Pillion,’ ‘Warfare’ and More
The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) today announced the winners of its ten film craft categories.
The announcement was made by BIFA in partnership with Letterboxd. British star and BIFA favourite Susan Wokoma joined Letterboxd’s Ella Kemp and BIFA podcast host Karis Aldridge at One Hundred Shoreditch to reveal this year’s winners and celebrate craft in the creative industries.
The winners of all remaining categories will be announced at the BIFA ceremony at the Roundhouse on Sunday, November 30. You can see the above the line nominees for the main categories below.
Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s visceral Navy SEAL drama Warfare added to its 2025 Best Ensemble Performance BIFA with three craft wins – Best Editing for Fin Oates, Best Effects for Simon Stanley-Clamp and Ryan Conder, and Best Sound sponsored by Bleat for Glenn Freemantle, Mitch Low, Howard Bargroff, Ben Barker and Richard Spooner, marking the second year in a row that Glenn Freemantle and Howard Bargroff have won this award, last year alongside Mary H Ellis for Civil War.
Two-time BIFA nominee Seamus McGarvey wins Best Cinematography sponsored by Kodak and Molinare, and Raife Burchell and Ian Neil scoop Best Music Supervision for Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, a feverish portrait of a woman driven to the edge.
Harry Lighton’s debut feature Pillion following the ups and downs (and pleasures and pains) of a budding relationship between two very different men took two awards: Best Costume Design for 2021 BIFA winner Grace Snell, and Best Best Make-Up & Hair Design for Diandra Ferreira.
Tom Basden and Adem Ilhan win Best Original Music sponsored by Universal Music Publishing Group for The Ballad of Wallis Island, in which Tom stars as a faded folk musician who reunites with his former partner for an eccentric fan.
Best Casting sponsored by Casting Society and Spotlight goes to Lauren Evans for I Swear, Kirk Jones’ touching feature chronicling the life of Tourette’s campaigner John Davison. Best Production Design sponsored by ATC goes to Nathan Parker for his work on Athina Rachel Tsangari’s folk horror Harvest adapted from Jim Crace’s 2013 novel; Nathan previously won this award in 2023 for Daniel Kaluyya’s debut The Kitchen.
Best Casting: Lauren Evans, I Swear
Best Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey, Die My Love
Best Costume Design: Grace Snell, Pillion
Best Editing: Fin Oates, Warfare
Best Effects: Simon Stanley-Clamp and Ryan Conder, Warfare
Best Make-Up & 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 Sound: Glenn Freemantle, Mitch Low, Howard Bargroff, Ben Barker & Richard Spooner – Warfare
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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