Reclaim The Frame represents at the 2025 BIFA Nominations

Reclaim The Frame Team
14 hours ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 hours ago

Awards season is officially underway with the BIFA 2025 nominations being announced this week. Congratulations to all the nominees! These nominations celebrate the incredible range of talent across independent British filmmaking this year which has been another busy and rewarding chapter in our mission to celebrate the voices of both new and established filmmakers.

We’re proud to see many Reclaim The Frame supported titles amongst the nominees including Brides, Holloway, Lollipop, Motherboard and Mother Vera which we supported through digital campaigns, screenings and community events across the UK.

A group of five people stand on stage in front of a large cinema screen displaying “Reclaim The Frame Presents BRIDES.” They are participating in a discussion while an audience watches from red cinema seats in a warmly lit cinema.

We were proud to host the UK premiere at Edinburgh Film Festival and support the release of Brides (dir. Nadia Fall). We brought audiences together for conversations with the director and cast at cinemas around the country including Cardiff, Leeds and Brighton. The discussion explored how this bold film reimagines sisterhood and radicalisation through the eyes of teenage girls.

A panel of six people sit at the front of a cinema beside a large screen showing the title “HOLLOWAY” and promotional text for the film. The theater is full, and one panelist uses a microphone to speak while others listen attentively.

For Holloway (dir. Sophie Compton, Daisy-May Hudson) we brought audiences together for accessible screening events and Q&As with the filmmakers and contributors that took place across the country, highlighting women’s experiences of incarceration and female solidarity on the journey to healing.

Two speakers sit in director’s chairs on stage in front of a large cinema screen showing the title “Reclaim The Frame Presents MOTHER VERA,” with an image of a person riding a white horse through snow. Both hold microphones and engage in discussion.

Mother Vera (dir. Cecile Embleton, Alys Tomlinson) saw audiences in London and Liverpool join a live conversation with the film’s co-director Cécile Embleton, diving into the film's themes of faith and identity, and her experience of shooting in a monastery in Belarus.

Talking Points

This year’s BIFA nominations feature a number of powerful achievements for women and marginalised gender creatives in film alongside reminders of how much further the industry still has to go and why our work must continue.

Lynne Ramsay has been nominated for Best Director for Die My Love, the film that marks the celebrated director’s return. It is adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel which is a fierce exploration of womanhood, relationships and mental health. Ramsay is one of the two women nominated for Best Director this year alongside Laura Carreira for her debut feature film On Falling.
Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in Die My Love stands out as the only woman nominated for Best Lead Performance. This is a striking fact that underscores ongoing gender imbalance that occurs from leading roles available to the performances that get recognised.
Encouragingly, two of the Best Joint Lead Performance nominations are duos of women: Ebada Hassan and Saffiya Ingar (Brides), Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn (Dragonfly). This possibly signals stronger recognition of female-led collaborations on screen: the power of women supporting women!
There are two women nominated for Best Cinematography - Charlotte Bruus Christensen for H Is For Hawk and Cécile Embleton for Mother Vera. True equality in cinema depends not only on who’s seen on screen, but also on who’s behind the lens. No woman has ever won the BAFTA or Oscar for Best Cinematography. Only three have been nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography as of 2025: Rachel Morrison (Mudbound, 2018), Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog, 2022) & Mandy Walker (Elvis, 2023).
Three women are nominated in the Best Sound category: Adele Fletcher (My Father’s Shadow), Linda Forsén (Die My Love) and Nina Hartstone (Ish). This is on par with last year's BIFAs when three films with women sound designers were nominated, which is a step up from the one film nominated in 2023.

Celebrating Our Partner Cinemas

Finally, we’re delighted to see three of our longstanding partner cinemas nominated for Cinema of the Year: Depot Cinema (Lewes), Queen’s Film Theatre (Belfast) and Watershed (Bristol). Each has been instrumental in building inclusive and local film communities while also joining in on our mission to champion marginalised voices in cinema. The vote to decide the winner is open to the public and closes on Tuesday 25 November. Learn more and vote here.

The winners of the 2025 BIFAs will be unveiled at the ceremony in London on Sunday 30 November. Learn more about Reclaim The Frame supported films here.