Voter Duties & Responsibilities 2024

BIFA VOTER DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES 2024

Key Dates
Adjudication Process
1. Overview
2. Subgroup Process
3. Subgroup meeting dates
4. Allocated viewing
5. Conflicts of Interest
6. Access to entered films
7. Unconscious Bias Training
8. Confidentiality and Voter Code of Conduct
Voting Proces
1. Features
2. Shorts

1. Key Dates

June	Subgroup registration deadline Subgroup placement
June	Shorts and Feature entries open
July	Unconscious Bias training, TBC Viewing begins
5 July	Voter briefing meeting (10-11am) (those in Shorts subgroup will have a separate meeting in the afternoon)
23 August 4 September	Final Shorts entry deadline Final Features entry deadline
3 September	Shorts subgroup meeting (1)
9 -12 September	Subgroup meetings (1) (excl. Shorts)
6 – 13 September	Shorts preliminary voting round (Entries > long longlist)
16 – 30 September	Round 1 features voting (Entries > longlists)
19 September – 9 October	Round 1 shorts voting (long longlist > longlists)
23– 26 September	Subgroup meetings (2)
7 – 9 October	Subgroup meetings (3 – longlists)
w/c 14 October	Longlist announcements
16 October – 28 October	Round 2 voting (longlists > nominations)
5 November	Nominations announcement (subject to change)
5 – 18 November 26 November	Vote for Craft categories winners open All BIFA voters can take part, regardless of whether they voted in the previous two rounds Craft winners announced
5 November – 2 December	Vote for Best British Independent Film, Best British Short Film and Best International Independent Film, Best Documentary and Raindance Maverick Award winners open. All BIFA voters can take part, regardless of whether they voted in the previous two rounds
8 December	BIFA Ceremony (subject to change) Active BIFA voters who voted in Rounds 1 and 2 are invited to the after party

2. Adjudication Process

a. Overview

BIFA’s Nomination Committee and voters decide the longlists and nominations in most categories. After a rigorous discussion-based selection process, the longlists and nominations are decided by confidential vote.

b. Subgroup process

Voters who have reported themselves to be available for voting in 2024 are divided into subgroups that cover all award categories, excluding special awards. The ten subgroups convened are:

Debut Director
Debut Screenwriter
Breakthrough Producer
Shorts
Documentary
Maverick
International
Performance
Director / Screenwriter
Craft

Voters have access to all films entered to BIFA but are responsible for prioritising the films allocated to them and other films in their subgroup. Voters must watch a minimum number of films entered for their subgroup before they can vote in any of BIFA’s voting rounds. Voting for BIFA usually involves watching around 20 feature films.

Films are allocated to ensure that the process is efficient and that every film is seen by a fair amount of voters. Voters are expected to commit to seeing all films allocated to them. Aside from this they can watch as many or as few films as they want to.

The subgroups meet throughout the process to:

Discuss the films they have seen
Decide which films should be seen by more voters, having been seen by a minimum amount of voters and been well-liked
Highlight films that haven’t reached the minimum amount of views yet and allocate them if necessary
Discuss the Best British Independent Film category and recommend films to be longlisted there

Subgroups are led by a subgroup chair and a co-chair. The chair is responsible for leading the discussion at meetings and helping BIFA ensure that all films are fairly viewed and discussed. Chairs are also responsible for confirming their subgroup’s longlist results with the BIFA Nomination Committee and may be asked to act as spokesperson for the subgroup at events such as the nominations announcement.

c. Subgroup meeting dates

Shorts	Documentary
Watch & vote for the Best Short Film award Meeting 1: Tues 3 Sept` 12-1:30pm Meeting 2: Thurs 26 Sep 12-1:30pm Meeting 3: Thurs 10 Oct 12-1pm	Watch & vote for the Best Documentary & Debut Director – Documentary Feature categories Meeting 1: Mon 9 Sept 10:00-11:30am Meeting 2: Mon 23 Sept 10:00-11:30am Meeting 3: Mon 7 Oct 10:00-11:00am
Debut Director	Director/Screenplay
Watch & vote for the Debut Director category Meeting 1: Mon 9 Sept 12:30-2:00pm Meeting 2: Mon 23 Sept 12:30-2:00pm Meeting 3: Mon 7 Oct 12:30-1:30pm	Watch & vote for the Best Director & Best Screenwriter categories Meeting 1: Thurs 12 Sept 10-11:30am Meeting 2: Wed 25 Sept 10-11:30am Meeting 3: Wed 9 Oct 10-11am
Craft	Performance
Watch and vote for the Craft categories (excluding Best Casting) – Cinematography, Costume Design, Editing, Effects, Make-Up & Hair Design, Original Music, Music Supervision, Production Design, Sound Meeting 1: Mon 9 Sept 3:30-5:00pm Meeting 2: Mon 23 Sept 3:30-5:00pm Meeting 3: Mon 7 Oct 3:30-4:30pm	Watch & vote for the performance & Casting categories (Best Lead Performance, Best Joint Lead Performance, Best Supporting Performance, Best Ensemble Performance, Breakthrough Performance, Best Casting) Meeting 1: Tue 10 Sept 2-3:30pm Meeting 2: Tues 24 Sept 2-3:30pm Meeting 3: Tues 8 Oct 2-3pm
International	Breakthrough Producer
Watch & vote for the Best International Independent Film award Meeting 1: Tues 10 Sept 4.30-6pm Meeting 2: Tues 24 Sept 4.30-6pm Meeting 3: Tues 8 Oct 4.30-5.30pm	Watch and vote for the Breakthrough Producer category Meeting 1: Tues 10 Sept 11-12:30pm Meeting 2: Tues 24 Sept 11-12:30pm Meeting 3: Tues 8 Oct 11am-12pm
Maverick	Debut Screenwriter
Watch & vote for the Raindance Maverick Award (formerly the Raindance Discovery Award) Meeting 1: Thu 12 Sept 12:30-2pm Meeting 2: Weds 25 Sept 12:30-2pm Meeting 3: Weds 9 Oct 12:30-1:30pm	Watch & vote for the Debut Screenwriter category Meeting 1: Thu 12 Sept 3-4:30pm Meeting 2: Weds 25 Sept 3-4:30pm Meeting 3: Weds 9 Oct 3-4pm

d. Allocated viewing

Allocating films to voters within a subgroup helps us to make sure that all films that are entered to BIFA are seen fairly. The process works like this:

Each film is allocated to five voters in each subgroup where it is competing.
Once the film has been seen widely enough within a subgroup for a thorough discussion to take place within a meeting, the subgroup can opt to mark the film as either a “Contender” or “Not a contender”.

This process takes place from July to September. Thereafter, films go through the voting rounds and are narrowed down to the longlists, nominations and winners.

The shorts process works slightly differently to feature film subgroups:

i. Voters in the shorts subgroup are divided into teams of about 5-8 voters per team.

ii. Each team is allocated a portion of the entries to watch.

iii. Just before Round One voting, there is a Preliminary Round of voting within the shorts teams to pick their top 5 films from the ones they were allocated.

iv. Each team’s top 5 are put together to form a long longlist, which is fed into Round One voting. All voters in the subgroup are asked to watch all films on this list before voting in Round One.

v. Round One voting then reduces the long longlist to a regular longlist of around 15 films.

e. Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest must be declared to BIFA and voters sit out any discussions of films which they have an interest in. Conflicted voters may still vote, but they may not vote for films which they have an interest in.

f. Access to entered films

Voters can access information about, and screeners of, the entered films from the secure voting section of the BIFA site. We also regularly email our voters with information about:

Online screeners
Invitations to screenings
New entries / updates to entries

g. Unconscious Bias training

A requirement of being a BIFA voter, juror or committee member is to undergo Unconscious Bias training. The training lasts 90 minutes and is designed to help voters understand how humans make decisions, how implicit biases can play a part in that and what one can do to ensure that decision-making under pressure (a big part of the BIFA process) remains as fair and open-minded as possible.

Voters who have already undergone training in 2022 or 2023 will be asked to watch a refresher video, accessible through the BIFA website. New voters or those who did not complete training in 2022 or 2023 must attend an online training session.

h. Confidentiality and code of conduct

By registering to be a voter for the British Independent Film Awards 2024, all voters agree to abide by the BIFA Code of Conduct, which can be found here. As part of this agreement, voters understand that any discussions in any form, written or verbal, about the entered films with BIFA and their fellow voters are confidential and undertake not to reveal any part of these discussions at any time before or after the 2024 Awards.

3. VOTING PROCESS

a. Features

After the adjudication process comes voting. Votes are cast privately on the secure voting section of our website.

Round 1: Longlist

Round 1 voting reduces all entries to longlists of around 15 films in each category.

Usually this round of voting requires voters to watch a considerable number of films, so we encourage voters to focus primarily on voting within their own subgroups / categories.

The subgroups also put forward films to be considered for Best British Independent Film.

Round 2: Nominations

Round 2 voting reduces the longlists to five nominees in each category. Voters may vote in their own subgroup and others, provided that they have watched enough films.

Round 3: Winners

The winners in most categories are decided by independent jury/ies, newly appointed each year. Juries discuss all nominations before voting confidentially for the winner using a preferential voting system. The exceptions to this are the winners of the honorary awards, which are decided by BIFA’s Nomination Committee, and the following categories, which are decided by a vote amongst all BIFA voters:

Best British Independent Film

Best British Short Film

Best International Independent Film

Best Feature Documentary

The Raindance Maverick Award

Craft categories

b. Shorts