Andrew Scott’s “Elsinore” leads the BIFA 2026 nominations with 12, the British Independent Film Awards announced Tuesday, Nov. 3. Jay Lycurgo and Posy Sterling read out the list at One Hundred Shoreditch in London. (Lycurgo is a nominee, too, in the “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” ensemble.)
Scott is up for best lead performance as Ian Charleson. “It’s a completely wonderful part, incredible screenplay, amazing cast, and you get to do so much stuff in it,” he told Reuters when the film opened the BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 7.
“Elsinore” is also nominated for best British independent film, and Simon Stone is up for best director. “The London theatre and film community were the people who this film’s about,” Stone told the Press Association that night.
Billie Piper, who plays casting director Patsy Pollock, earned a supporting nod, Stephen Beresford’s script is up for best screenplay and the other seven nominations land in craft categories, from Jessica Ronane’s casting to Stefan Gregory’s original music, according to BIFA’s full list.
How Ian Charleson’s Last Hamlet Became ‘Elsinore’
Charleson took over “Hamlet” from Daniel Day-Lewis at London’s National Theatre in late 1989, already diagnosed with AIDS, Gayety reported. He “spent his dying weeks sharing his insights into mortality, life, death, loss on stage in Hamlet, and he poured his lifeblood into giving that gift to an audience,” Stone told PA.
Charleson got through 24 performances before illness forced him out, and he died in January 1990. Stone said the film lets the gay community celebrate “one of its icons, and a warrior for the truth and a warrior for honesty on stage.”
Scott, who has argued that films about the AIDS crisis still matter, told Reuters the role felt rare. “I definitely realised it was a part that doesn’t come around very often,” he said.
Beresford also wrote “Pride,” which got him a BIFA screenplay nomination, according to BIFA. Scott won best supporting actor at the BIFAs for that 2014 film, BIFA’s winners archive shows.
Queer Films Beyond ‘Elsinore’ in the BIFA 2026 Nominations
Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s “La Bola Negra” and Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid” are two of the five nominees for best international independent film. “I hope the film serves that purpose, to be a window of empathy and to see the other person for the human being they are,” Ambrossi said at Cannes in May, Reuters reported.
Firstman, who wrote, directed and stars in “Club Kid,” called its Cannes launch “an amalgamation of 15 years of work” in an interview with W magazine. Both films picked up new festival prizes this week.
Flora Nicholson, Clare Dunne and Mia Tharia share a joint lead nomination for “The Education of Jane Cumming,” set in Edinburgh in 1810. Its two teachers “embark on their dream of an independent life together,” says the Teddy Award, Berlin’s queer film prize, which had it in competition. Screen Daily noted that the same real-life case once informed William Wyler’s “The Children’s Hour.”
Bertil Nilsson is up for best debut director for “Masc,” which the BFI describes as a portrait of “a young, queer, autistic man of multiple heritages shaping a sense of self at his own pace.” It’s also on the Raindance Maverick Award list, alongside Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and Neil Ely’s “Chatlines,” a film that “blends mystery, heartbreak, and queer love,” according to HOME Manchester.
Nadia Stacey has two make-up and hair nominations, for “Elsinore” and for “Madfabulous.” That film premiered at BFI Flare, the BFI’s queer film festival, with Callum Scott Howells as the Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, whom Screen Daily called a “rebellious aristocrat.”
How to Watch ‘Elsinore’ and When BIFA Names Its Winners
Focus Features opens “Elsinore” in select U.S. theaters Friday, Nov. 20, before it expands “over the Thanksgiving holiday and throughout December.” “Elsinore will be in UK cinemas from January 29,” PA reported. RTÉ puts the Irish opening on the same Friday, Jan. 29, 2027.
The Gothams hand the film a Legacy Tribute in New York on Nov. 30. “We are delighted to celebrate Elsinore with the Gotham Legacy Tribute in recognition of the remarkable artist who inspired it,” said Jeffrey Sharp, the Gotham institute’s executive director.
BIFA posts its craft winners on its social channels Tuesday, Nov. 24, and plans to name its ceremony host and juries “in the coming weeks.” All other winners “will be revealed at the Roundhouse on Sunday 6 December,” according to BIFA.
