British Independent Film Award for Best British Independent Film

The British Independent Film Award for Best British Independent Film is an annual award given by the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) to recognize the best British independent film. The award was first presented in the 1998 ceremony with Ken Loach's romantic drama My Name Is Joe being the first recipient of the award. The current winner is Andrew Haigh's drama film All of Us Strangers.

Elegibility

The award goes to the writers, producers and directors that are fully credited for the film. Co-directors and co-writers are only eligible where there are no lead directors or writers credited. Other producer credits such as associate, executive, and others, as well as individuals credited with "additional material by", "original story by", and similar credits are not elegible for the award or nomination.

According to the rules presented by BIFA, in order for a film to be considered "independent" and therefore be eligible for this award and the other categories, the financing of the film must come from an independent studio or does not exceed a budget of $25 million in case of a production from a major studio. Additionally, the origination of the film will also be taken into account when assessing the independence of studio-backed films, this referring to "whether it was initially conceived inside or outside of a studio system".

Similarly to the craft categories, the nominees and winner for this award are decided by BIFA voters, unlike the performance categories and the debut awards whichh are decided by a performance jury and a filmmaker jury, respectively.