Cannes 2025: Awards and Highlights

This year’s Cannes Film Festival came to a close with electrifying success for the UK’s independent film industry. We were thrilled to see UK films and their creators recognised for their achievements by the festival jury. Three feature films backed by the BFI Filmmaking Fund with National Lottery funding, selected for this year's Un Certain Regard strand were honoured with prizes. The first of which was My Father's Shadow, a UK/Nigeria collaboration, for which Akinola Davies Jnr. received a Caméra d’Or Special Mention.

Un Certain Regard awarded its Best Actor prize to Frank Dillane for his captivating performance in Harris Dickinson's Urchin, for which Dickinson was also awarded a FIPRESCI Prize by the International Federation of Film Critics, for his feature directorial debut.

Writer-director Harry Lighton won the Un Certain Regard award for Best Screenplay for his debut feature, Pillion, starring Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård.

A massive congratulations to the winners, their entire filmmaking teams and the partners behind My Father's Shadow, Urchin and Pillion!

Amongst the winners in the Critics' Week strand, we were delighted to see Shih-Ching Tsou's Left-Handed Girl pick up the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution for French distributor, Le Pacte. Co-written by Oscar® and Palme d'Or winning writer-director Sean Baker with Tsou, the film is a Taiwan-France-USA-UK co-production, produced by Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos with Tsou.

And finally, we were delighted that the UK Pavilion, which is supported by the BFI’s International Fund with screen sector partners to promote the UK internationally to cultural and commercial collaborators,  received a Special Mention at the 2025 Pavilion Design Awards at the Marché du Film.

The jury praised the Pavilion for its immersive cinematic experience and commitment to accessibility:
“The special mention goes to the pavilion that managed to transport us into the world of cinema. It immersed the audience in the atmosphere of a real movie theatre. But beyond ambience, we would like to highlight and congratulate the team for making the pavilion accessible to all. We're delighted to give a special mention to the UK Pavilion.”

We kicked off our packed schedule of events at the UK Pavilion with insightful talks on navigating the UK's new AVEC tax credits, minority co-producing, leading UK festivals and a Talent Talk with filmmaker Harris Dickinson and the team behind debut feature, Urchin - backed by the BFI Filmmaking Fund, with National Lottery Funding. Dickinson opened up about the inspiration behind Frank Dillane's Mike in Urchin: "I became really interested in the idea of someone who has ultimately struggling against themselves, it's an issue I wanted to tap into in a way that had humour, levity and humanity". For more insights into Urchin and all other panels from Day 1 at the UK Pavilion in Cannes, click here to watch recordings of each event.

Day 2 at the UK Pavilion saw the filmmaking team behind another Un Certain Regard debut take the stage, My Father's Shadow - backed by the BFI Filmmaking Fund, with National Lottery funding. First-time feature filmmaker Akinola Davies Jnr, co-writer Wale Akinola Davies, producers Funmbi Ogunbanwo and Rachel Dargavel, as well BBC Film’s Eva Yates walked us through the development of this deeply personal film, crafted with a distinctive creative vision. With the BFI Filmmaking Fund’s Ama Ampadu taking the audience through the discussion, director Akinola Davis Jnr. left us excited for the film's premiere: "I'm really looking forward to people seeing the film. It's a film about fatherhood, nationhood and there are real people in this story and I hope we honour them."

We also welcomed our partners at the British Film Commission, UK Screen Alliance and Screen Scotland for a morning session on VFX and Post-Production opportunities in the UK, followed by an impactful conversation exploring how working with disabled filmmakers, actors and crew can push the industry toward more inclusive, imaginative and innovative filmmaking.

Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini (Writer and Filmmaker), Abbie Hills (Access Coordinator and Talent Agent) and Mari Sanders (Writer-director) reflected on how building equity into the production process and working with disabled creatives leads to better stories than what would have been originally possible.

Watch both Talent Talk: My Father's Shadow and Creativity and Disability: When Challenges Spark Innovation panels on our website here.

We were also delighted to host a powerful conversation on gender-inclusive storytelling and best practices within the Cannes Marché du Film events programme. Hosted by the BFI in partnership with Reclaim the Frame and Women & Hollywood and moderated by  Berlinale Festival Director Tricia Tuttle, the panel discussed how in the light of how trans and non-binary professionals are marginalised in film,  the industry is exploring ways how we can all  be more inclusive around allyship with speakers writer and director Amrou Al-Khadi (Layla); film director and award-winning screenwriter Chica Andrade (We Are All Here); and Kiyoko McCrae, Program Director, Chicken & Egg Films.

A strong array of industry events followed at the UK Pavilion, covering everything from the rise of indigenous language films, pathways to a desirable future in AI, the appeal of genre films across borders, and co-productions case studies of both Bring Them Down and Lomu. Don't miss international expert speakers in conversation on these urgent industry topics, you can tune in here to watch the recordings of each event.

We finished strong with two Talent Talks at the UK Pavilion. First, a deep dive into immersive stories Trailblazer and tAxI, two UK-made works featured in the Cannes 2025 Immersive strand. Producer Oriana Neidecker reflected on how immersive projects like tAxI come about: "Everyone on our team has very mixed backgrounds that cross pollinated well to build these stories."

"tAxI is about everyday stories and everyday human creativity and the stories we tell each other" added Director Stephen Henderson. Hear more fascinating takeaways about the world of immersive production here, from the teams behind Trailblazer and tAxI.

Finally, we were excited to welcome writer-director Harry Lighton, producer, Lee Groombridge, editor, Gareth Scales and director of photography, Nick Morris, to discuss the debut feature, Pillion. Featured in Cannes 2025's Un Certain Regard and backed by the BFI Filmmaking Fund - awarding National Lottery Funding, the filmmaking team behind Pillion revealed the origins and development of the script, and how he and his team brought it to the screen.

That's it from us on all the incredible UK Pavilion events at Cannes 2025. Watch back on all our recorded events here or head over to the ScreenUK Industry Podcasts on Spotify or Apple to hear more.