RESEARCH: BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

BIFA AWARDS

I have been interested in the BIFA which is an award ceremony for many different independent films across Great Britain.

I particularly became interested in this due to the BFI study day I had because I was introduced to American Honey on that trip in November 2016. The BFI study day was delivered by Rob Miller and was about Independent films versus Mainstream films.

I wanted to see how well American Honey did at BIFA's. It came to my attention as my film is going to be a British independent film with a low budget as well, therefore I thought it would be a good idea to research the awards.

I also retweeted many tweets from after the awards which show which films won what awards. When I clicked on the American Honey link on the first screenshot, it took me to a page that displayed the awards that they have won, and the trailer to the independent film that I have watched. I am particularly interested in American Honey due to the similarities there are between my film and American Honey; they are both low budget, featuring almost unknown actors. It is promoted as defining our generation according to the BIFA website.

At the BFI study day on November 2nd I learned that American Honey counted as a British film because it has British directors, cast and the key organisations involved. Andrea Arnold is also famous for producing the film Fish Tank in 2009 at a cost £1.3 million (this is in comparison to Star Wars' budget of £230 million). American Honey's key themes involve young people and their lifestyle, and how they live in the moment in a carefree way, which are themes and issues not normally screened in mainstream cinemas. there were no expensive sets as it was all filmed on location which is very similar to my film as I have used no sets, but used locations that I found. Part of the social realism of the film they used handheld camerawork which gave it a certain style to the film depicting urban youth, which gives it a sense of cinema verite.