Film4 and Channel 4 receive combined total of 32 nominations for the British Independent Film Awards

Film4 and Channel 4 received 32 nominations for the 2019 British Independent Film Awards, announced this morning, including the two most highly nominated films: The Personal History of David Copperfield which led the nominations with 11, closely followed by Wild Rose with 10.

Documentaries also scored notably highly: Film4-backed Diego Maradona and Channel 4 News co-production For Sama gained five nominations each, and another Channel 4 coproduction Three Identical Strangers scored one. Among those nominations, both Diego Maradona and For Sama were nominated for Best Director, and For Sama was also nominated in top category Best British Independent Film.

Director of Film4 Daniel Battsek commented: “Thank you to the BIFA jurors on behalf of all at Film4 for recognising such a diverse range of nominees, and for proving that great storytelling transcends categories by nominating documentaries so widely in the major categories. Congratulations to all our nominees!”

Channel 4 News editor, Ben de Pear, said: “We are delighted For Sama has received five nominations and it is testament to the remarkable power of Waad al-Kateab's footage and the direction of her and Edward Watts in turning her 500 hours of material into this stunning feature documentary."

Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield led this year’s nominations with 11, including Best British Independent Film (Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Kevin Loader); Dev Patel was nominated for Best Actor, Tilda Swinton for Best Supporting Actress and Hugh Laurie for Best Supporting Actor; Armando Iannucci and Simon Blackwell were nominated for Best Screenplay; and the film achieved six nominations in craft categories – Casting (Sarah Crowe), Cinematography (Zac Nicholson), Costume Design (Suzie Harman, Robert Worley), Editing (Mick Audsley, Peter Lambert), Make Up & Hair Design (Karen Hartley-Thomas) and Production Design (Cristina Casali).

Tom Harper’s Wild Rose was the second most highly nominated film with 10 nominations including Best British Independent Film (Tom Harper, Nicole Taylor, Faye Ward); Nicole Taylor was nominated in both Best Screenplay and Debut Screenwriter categories; Jessie Buckley was nominated for Best Actress and Julie Walters for Supporting Actress; in the craft categories the film was nominated for Casting (Kathleen Crawford), Costume Design (Anna Mary Scott Robins), Make Up & Hair Design (Jody Williams), Music (Jack Arnold) and Sound (Lee Walpole, Colin Nicholson, Stuart Hilliker).

For Sama’s nomination for Best British Independent Film made it three out of five for Channel 4/Film4 titles in the top category, with Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts also nominated for Best Director; the film also scored in the Documentary category as well as for Editing (Chloe Lambourne and Simon McMahon) and Music (Nainita Desai).

Asif Kapadia scored a Best Director nomination for Diego Maradona, which was also nominated for Documentary (Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees and Paul Martin); the film also scored in Music (Antonio Pinto), Editing (Chris King) and Sound (Stephen Griffiths, Tim Cavagin, Max Walsh, Andy Shelley) categories.

Becky Read was nominated as Breakthrough Producer for Three Identical Strangers.

For Sama is currently available to view on All 4 at https://www.channel4.com/programmes/for-sama