Winners announced at the 2026 BFI & CHANEL Filmmaker Awards

Today Academy Award and BAFTA-winning actor Jessie Buckley (Hamnet, Wicked Little Letters), and Emmy Award and Critics Choice Award nominated actor Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, Severance) announced the winners of the BFI & CHANEL Filmmaker Awards: Celebrating Creative Audacity. 

Both joined the jury this year with existing members Edward Enninful OBE, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of EE72, Marie-Louise Khondji, founder of Le Cinéma Club, and BFI CEO Ben Roberts, to present the 2026 winning filmmakers with their awards at a special event today at London’s Claridges.  

The jury selected four emerging UK filmmakers as winners of the 2026 Awards: director/producer/cinematographer Rich Felgate (We, The Hated), director/writer Olive Nwosu (Lady), director/co-writer/composer Imran Perretta (Ish), and director/writer Rachel Taparjan (Something Familiar).   

Selected for their creative audacity and ambition to explore a new dynamic to their practice, each of the four award winners received financial support of £20,000. This will enable them to expand their work and explore new ideas, cultivate co-creation and knowledge exchange, and widen the representation of voices in today’s cultural community. The Awards support the BFI’s mission to back the next generation of UK independent filmmaking talent. 

The relationship between Chanel and film first started when Gabrielle Chanel travelled to Hollywood in 1930 to dress the leading actresses of the day, and transformed them into style icons. A century on, and the story of CHANEL and film continues through partnerships with institutions and festivals around the world.  

Since 2022 CHANEL has partnered with the BFI to together create the Filmmaker Awards. Through this partnership with the BFI, CHANEL continues to champion creativity, culture and craftsmanship in the UK, and support future British creative talents into the next century and beyond.  

“I am delighted to join the jury of this incredibly special award,” said Buckley. “Diving into the world of emerging filmmakers and deliberating with this fabulous jury has been such a joy. I’m inspired by the strength of talent in the UK, and I can’t wait to see the bright futures of these filmmakers.”  

“It was such a thrill to be part of this award,” said Christie. “The work of CHANEL and the BFI is inspiring and I truly admire their partnership to bring this amazing opportunity to emerging UK filmmaking talent. It was a strong field and a thoroughly enjoyable debate, and we concluded we couldn’t just select three winners. I think the winners demonstrate the vibrancy within the UK independent filmmaking space – very talented people with personal and powerful messages to communicate, and the vision and creativity to tell those stories in an extraordinary way.” 

Rich Felgate, director/producer/cinematographer of We, The Hated:

“Rich’s film is without doubt urgent and brave, but we were also struck by his storytelling ability. His film powerfully conveys the impact on the individuals involved as well as raising pressing questions about the wider political context, while also asking honest questions about the limits of protest itself.” 

We, The Hated released in selected UK cinemas on 2 November 2026 following previews on 27 October  

Olive Nwosu, director/writer of Lady

“Olive has delivered a big cinematic movie, immediately transporting us to Lagos, demonstrating ambition and craft rare for a directorial debut. She skilfully brought together this brilliant ensemble of actors to deliver performances that charged the film with genuine sisterhood, while also handling challenging material, which could easily be objectified, with real intimacy and care.” 

Lady released in the UK in Spring 2027 

Imran Perretta, director/co-writer/composer of Ish 

“Imran has created a wonderful and deeply moving film, overwhelming the cinema screen with an authentic and emotionally true story that is both incredibly intimate but also universal. We admired the black-and-white cinematography, his artistry, his handling of child and non-professional actors and how he explored the devastating impact of racial profiling, institutional suspicion of young brown boys, and the ache of being English yet treated as other.”  

Ish is available on BFI Player 

Rachel Taparjan, director/writer (Something Familiar) 

“We wanted to celebrate Rachel’s bravery and total openness – a naked, unself-conscious revelation of self. A deceptively simple search for family that opens onto identity, inheritance and generational trauma, using camera, narration and interviews which all keep shifting the viewer’s understanding. It was the film that stayed with us the longest, and impossible to stop thinking about.”  

Something Familiar release details TBA 

Ben Roberts, CEO of the BFI, said: “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with CHANEL and present these unique awards to some of the UK’s brightest filmmakers. This year’s winners have all made startling and moving films, and we hope this award offers them the space and freedom to continue to take risks and be audacious in the next steps of their careers.” 

Previous winners include Harry Lighton who won in 2025 for Pillion which went on to win Best British Independent Film Award in the same year and Best Adapted Screenplay at the US’ Gotham Independent Film Awards, Kathryn Ferguson, who won in 2022 with her debut award-winning documentary Nothing Compares about Sinead O’Connor and has since directed Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes, a documentary about the Hollywood icon for Universal; Savanah Leaf, who won in 2023 with Earth Mama and went on to win the 2024 BAFTA for Best Debut British Writer; and Director and Producer Pinny Grylls who won in 2024 as the co-writer and co-director of Grand Theft Hamlet which won The Raindance Maverick Award at the British Independent Film Awards that year. 

Rich Felgate, director/producer/cinematographer of We, The Hated, said: “It’s an honour to receive this Award. Thank you to the jury for championing work that asks uncomfortable questions and voices difficult truths of our age. Thank you to all the people I’ve filmed who endeavour to face up to those difficult questions.” 

Olive Nwosu, director/writer of Lady, said: “I’m thrilled and honoured to have been selected along with my peers for this award. Albert Camus says, “Create dangerously”, and I have always taken this to heart. Thank you to so many who have supported me already, and special thanks especially to the BFI and Chanel. To be acknowledged specifically for this award, for creative audacity, means everything.” 

Imran Perretta, director/co-writer/composer of Ish, said: “It is a total honour to receive a BFI & CHANEL Filmmaker Award, especially for a film as personal as Ish. The award is a real affirmation for me to keep making work that feels honest, political and ambitious and I’m incredibly grateful to BFI and Chanel for believing in me as a filmmaker.” 

Rachel Taparjan, director/writer of Something Familiar, said: “Receiving the BFI & CHANEL Filmmaker Award has meant an enormous amount to me. Something Familiar is my first feature documentary, and making it required a huge amount of trust, care and belief from the people involved. To have the film and my work recognised in this way has given me real confidence as I move towards my next projects. More than anything, the Award has made me feel that I can be ambitious about the kind of filmmaker I want to become.” 

2025 Filmmaker Awards:  

• Harry Lighton writer/director (Pillion)  
• The Neurocultures Collective (Sam Chown-Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker) and artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood (creators of The Stimming Pool)  
• Sandhya Suri, writer/director (Santosh) 

 2024 Filmmaker Awards: 

• Luna Carmoon, writer/director (Hoard) 
• Pinny Grylls, writer/director (co-writer/co-director Grand Theft Hamlet) 
• Naqqash Khalid writer/director (In Camera) 

2023 Filmmaker Awards:   

• Ella Glendining, writer/director (director and cast of Is There Anybody Out There?)  
• Savanah Leaf, writer/director/producer (writer/director of Earth Mama)  
• Nadira Murray, producer (Winners) 

 2022 Filmmaker Awards: 

• Baff Akoto, artist/director (producer of The Queen of Glory) 
• Kathryn Ferguson, writer/director (Nothing Compares) 
• Sam Firth, director/producer (The Wolf Suit) 
• Erfan Saadati director/producer (Child of Empire) 

The jury’s decision and deliberation covers the filmmaker’s body of work and the strength of their application, and each nominee had to have a work released and/or showcased between 1 January 2025-30 June 2026 to be eligible.  

For the 2026 Award, the winners were selected from a shortlist of eight filmmakers, developed through a process of collaboration and consultation with experienced professionals from across the sector. A group of industry experts each nominated filmmakers, who were then invited to apply for the Awards. Producers, writers, directors, or writer/directors were eligible if they were UK residents, had made one or two features or XR/immersive works which have been released in the UK or presented at a leading UK or international film festival.