The filmmakers behind We, The Hated, Lady, Ish and Something Familiar are the four winners of the 2026 BFI and Chanel Filmmaker Awards. Now in t
The filmmakers behind We, The Hated, Lady, Ish and Something Familiar are the four winners of the 2026 BFI and Chanel Filmmaker Awards.
Now in their fifth year, the awards aim to champion creativity, culture and craftsmanship and support future British original talents, with each recipient receiving £20,000.
The winners were unveiled by modern jury members Jessie Buckley and Gwendoline Christie alongside existing jurors Edward Enninful, Marie-Louise Khondji and BFI CEO Ben Roberts at an event held today at London’s Claridges Hotel (October 14).
The jury described Rich Felgate’s We, The Hated, which opened Sheffield Doc Fest earlier this year and follows UK climate protest movement Just Stop Oil, as “urgent and brave, powerfully conveying the impact on the individuals as well as raising pressing questions about the wider political context”.
Olive Nwosu’s Nigeria-set feature debut Lady premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival where it won the special jury award for an acting ensemble and also screened in Berlin’s Panorama section. The jury described it as a “big cinematic movie, immediately transporting us to Lagos, demonstrating ambition and craft rare for a directorial debut”.
Imran Perretta’s feature debut Ish had its world premiere in the Critics’ Week section at Venice in 2025, winning the audience award, before going on to play at the London Film Festival last year. The jury described the film, which Perretta co-wrote with Enda Walsh and draws on his own experiences of racial profiling growing up, as 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”.
Meanwhile, the jury praised Rachel Taparjan’s “bravery and total openness”, describing Something Familiar as a “naked, unself-conscious revelation of self”. The documentary, which follows Taparjan as she returns to her native Romania having been adopted and brought to England as a child, world premiered at CPH: DOX and won the Chicken and Egg Vision Award at Cannes docs in progress in 2025.
Previous winners of the awards include Harry Lighton in 2025 for Pillion, Kathryn Ferguson in 2022 with Sinead O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares, Savannah Leaf in 2023 with Earth Mama and director and producer Pinny Grylls in 2024 with Grand Theft Hamlet.
