enys men | The Film Magazine https://www.thefilmagazine.com A Place for Cinema Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:36:04 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-TFM-LOGO-32x32.png enys men | The Film Magazine https://www.thefilmagazine.com 32 32 85523816 2023 British Independent Film Awards – Winners List https://www.thefilmagazine.com/2023-british-independent-film-awards-winners/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/2023-british-independent-film-awards-winners/#respond Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:36:01 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=41239 The full list of winners from the 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs). Andrew Haigh's relationship drama 'All of Us Strangers' wins big. Report by Joseph Wade.

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The winners of the 2023 British Independent Film Awards were announced live from Old Billingsgate, London on Sunday 3rd December 2023, with Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers earning the Best British Independent Film award on a successful night for the relationship drama.

In a ceremony hosted by Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Lolly Adefope, All of Us Strangers took home British Independent Film Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Music Supervision and Best Editing, with 2023 Oscar nominee Paul Mescal (Aftersun) being named the joint winner for Best Supporting Performance for his part in the film.

Justine Triet’s 2023 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall was awarded the title of Best International Independent Film, earning the accolade over competing titles Fallen Leaves, Fremont, Monster and Past Lives.

Mia McKenna-Bruce won the award for Best Lead Performance for her part in How to Have Sex, with casting director Isabella Odoffin also earning an accolade for Best Casting.

The full list of 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs):

Best British Independent Film – All of Us Strangers
Femme
How to Have Sex
Rye Lane
Scrapper

Best International Independent Film sponsored by Champagne Taittinger – Anatomy of a Fall
Fallen Leaves
Fremont
Monster
Past Lives

Best Director sponsored by Sky Cinema – Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)
Raine Allen-Miller (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Screenplay sponsored by Apple Original Films – Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers)
Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Lead Performance – Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex)
Jodie Comer (The End We Start From)
Tia Nomore (Earth Mama)
Nabhaan Rizwan (In Camera)
Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers)
Tilda Swinton (The Eternal Daughter)

Best Supporting Performance – Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers)
Ritu Arya (Polite Society)
Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers)
Samuel Bottomley (How to Have Sex)
Alexandra Burke (Pretty Red Dress)
Amir El-Masry (In Camera)
Clair Foy (All of Us Strangers)
Alia Shawkat (Drift)
Shaun Thomas (How to Have Sex)
Katherine Waterston (The End We Start From)

Best Joint Lead Performance – Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George MacKay (Femme)
Lola Campbell, Harris Dickinson (Scrapper)
David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane)

The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) sponsored by BBC Film – Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama)
Raine Allen-Miller (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Holly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Breakthrough Producer sponsored by Pinewood and Shepperton Studios – Theo Barrowclough (Scrapper)
Georgia Goggin (Pretty Red Dress)
Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo (Rye Lane)
Gannesh Rajah (If the Streets Were on Fire)
Chi Thai (Raging Grace)

Breakthrough Performance sponsored by Netflix – Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane)
Le’Shantey Bonsu (Girl)
Lola Campbell (Scrapper)
Priya Kansara (Polite Society)
Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex)

Best Debut Screenwriter sponsored by Film4 – Nida Manzoor (Polite Society)
Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia (Rye Lane)
Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Femme)
Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex)
Charlotte Regan (Scrapper)

Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary – Chloe Abrahams (The Taste of Mango)
Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn (Another Baby)
Ella Glendining (Is There Anybody Out There?)
Alice Russell (If the Streets Were on Fire)
Christopher Sharp (Bobi Wine: The People’s President)

The Raindance Maverick Award – If the Streets Were on Fire
Is There Anybody Out There?
Name Me Lawand
Raging Grace
Red Herring

Best Feature Documentary sponsored by Intermission Film – If the Streets Were on Fire
Another Body
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
Lyra
Occupied City

Best British Short Film – Festival of Slaps
Christopher At Sea
Lions
Muna
The Talent

Best Casting sponsored by Casting Society & Spotlight – Isabella Odoffin (How to Have Sex) 
Shaheen Baig (Scrapper)
Kharmel Cochrane (Rye Lane)
Kahleen Crawford (All of Us Strangers)
Salome Oggenfuss, Geraldine Barón, Abby Harri (Earth Mama)

Best Cinematography sponsored by Harbor & Kodak – Jamie D. Ramsay (All of Us Strangers)
Olan Collardy (Rye Lane)
Suzie Lavelle (The End We Start From)
Molly Manning Walker (Scrapper)
James Rhodes (Femme)

Best Costume Design – Buki Ebiesuwa (Femme)
George Buxton (How to Have Sex)
Oliver Cronk (Scrapper)
Cynthia Lawrence-John (Rye Lane)
PC Williams (The End We Start From)

Best Editing – Jonathan Alberts (All of Us Strangers) 
Victoria Boydell (Rye Lane)
Paul Carlin (Bobi Wine: The People’s President)
Avdhesh Mohla (High & Low – John Galliano)
Arttu Salmi (The End We Start From)

Best Effects – Jonathan Gales, Richard Baker (The Kitchen)
Paddy Eason (Polite Society)
Theodor Flo-Groeneboom (The End We Start From)

Best Music Supervision – Connie Farr (All of Us Strangers)
Ciara Elwis (Femme)
David Fish (Rye Lane)

Best Make-Up & Hair Design sponsored by The Wall Group – Marie Deehan (Femme)
Zoe Clare Brown (All of Us Strangers)
Claire Carter (Polite Society)
Natasha Lawes (How to Have Sex)
Bianca Simone Scott (Rye Lane)

Best Original Music sponsored by Universal Music Publishing Group – Kwes (Rye Lane)
Adam Janota Bzowski (Femme)
Patrick Jonsson (Scrapper)
Anna Meredith (The End We Start From)
Ré Olunuga (Girl)

Best Production Design sponsored by ATC & Broadsword – Nathan Parker (The Kitchen)
Laura Ellis Cricks (The End We Start From)
Sarah Finlay (All of Us Strangers)
Elena Muntoni (Scrapper)
Anna Rhodes (Rye Lane)

Best Sound supported by Halo – Mark Jenkin (Enys Men)
Scrapper
How to Have Sex
All of Us Strangers
The End We Start From

Per BIFA.

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Enys Men (2022) Review https://www.thefilmagazine.com/enys-men-2022-review/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/enys-men-2022-review/#respond Mon, 16 Jan 2023 15:30:20 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=35334 Mark Jenkin follows his critically acclaimed feature debut 'Bait' with new colour horror film 'Enys Men' (2022), an example of his filmmaking prowess. Review by Mark Carnochan.

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Enys Men (2022)
Director: Mark Jenkin
Screenwriter: Mark Jenkin
Starring: Mary Woodvine, John Woodvine, Edward Rowe

With his breakthrough feature, 2019’s Bait, Mark Jenkin earned plenty of critical acclaim, crafting an intimate drama so specific to a small area of England that it spoke to many the world over. Naturally, after making such an impact, many of his newly found fans and peers awaited the sophomore effort – or the dreaded second album, as Jenkin himself referred to it. Almost four years later and the new film, Enys Men, can make or break the director’s legacy.

With Bait, Mark Jenkin crafted a film so unique with its post-synced sound, blunt dialogue and bare yet stylistic photography (thanks in no small part to the use of a vintage black and white camera), that he instantly placed his own directorial mark on the film. With Enys Men, Jenkin revisits this style and progresses it appropriately.

All the auteurisms from Jenkin’s previous work remain, and they charm just as easily. However, it is the new additions that truly put a spell on anyone willing to give this British independent film a chance. Enys Men is shot in gorgeous colour film photography, creating not just an accurate representation of 70s British cinema, but casting a wonderful colour palette across the screen that is a beauty to behold.

Enys Men is much more stripped back (in large part due to lockdown procedures during the pandemic) than Bait was. The plot of the film – if you could say it has one – finds a lone woman (Mary Woodvine) isolated on an island off the Cornish coast circa 1973. The actual reasoning for the woman’s stay on the island is unknown and never questioned, though her daily observations of a rare flower hint towards some form of research. 

Both the woman and the rock she inhabits are one and the same; two lone vessel’s battered and shaped by time and the natural world that surrounds them, each showing signs of past traumas only they could know. Thus, once the past, present and future traumas of the woman and the island begin to coalesce, the mysteries of both do not unravel, but instead tighten up, culminating in a 90-minute presentation that will leave you puzzled and without the ability to forget this movie anytime soon.

Jenkin opens up room for interpreting his film through ghostly images that appear on the island, in props, and even through the superstitious routines the woman re-enacts every day (checking the temperature of the flowers, throwing a rock down an old mine shaft, for example). Everyone will leave with their own reading – are they all ghosts, flashbacks, flash forwards, maybe even the woman’s own mind deteriorating? – but that is the very pull of the movie, the intrigue. There will surely be new evidence found upon each viewing that will help to enrich any theories you may find yourself gravitating towards originally, and this is a film that is bound to represent different things to different people.

It is in the very mystery of the movie that Enys Men’s horror elements arise. Just as the woman is seemingly alone on the island, you too feel alone in the cinema, transfixed on the screen, scanning every corner of the image in the hopes of finding any clue that might help you to understand what is happening, completely unaware of what is beside you (or worse, behind you). 

Throughout the film Jenkin focuses on certain routines or objects, pointing our attention towards a potential clue only to cut us away from our fixed gaze, usually to a horrifying image or to an ear-splitting sound, in a cruel abuse of storyteller power.

Perhaps the greatest mark of a filmmaker’s talent is their ability to adapt their use of cinematic language to each new story they tell. It is in this ability to adapt that Mark Jenkin presents himself as an incredibly intelligent filmmaker, evolving the style of his feature debut into something equally as recognisable whilst being entirely unique in its own right.

Enys Men is a chillingly atmospheric horror that embeds itself into your mind just like the traumas of its main character, leaving you with more questions than answers but one universal interpretation: Mark Jenkin is making films unlike those made by anyone else.

Score: 20/24

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