The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) is addressing its own prejudices. Screen Daily reports that the organization is requiring its voters to complete unconscious bias training before its 2018 awards ceremony on December 2. The purpose of the training is to help voters recognize and challenge their own implicit biases — positive or negative — regarding gender, race, genre, and/or commerciality.
According to BIFA, this is the first unconscious bias training to be designed for watching and judging films. Scheduled for this month, the training will feature three kinds of sessions: three-hour courses for moderators and the nominations committee that cover how to lead discussions without bias; 90-minute group sessions about recognizing one’s own biases; and shorter online courses for voters who cannot attend training in person. A few comprehensive classes will also be offered in November.
The training will tackle biases such as “assumptions being made about films directed by women or telling stories focused on women”; comedy films being considered less important than dramas; box office earnings; senior industry figures’ opinions; and voters’ personal experiences.
Each 2018 BIFA voter will have to take “some form of the training.” Their votes will be blocked from submission until they do so.
BIFA’s unconscious bias training was created in partnership with Creative Skillset after members of the nominations committee suggested it following the 2017 awards. It is part of the British Film Institute’s Future Film Skills initiative and supported with National Lottery funds from the BFI.
“In terms of the process, we wanted to make sure the discussions [around the nominations] were as thorough, as balanced, and as fair as possible,” BIFA co-director Amy Gustin told Screen Daily. “Also, from the point of view or genre, gender, and topic, are there certain films that are seen as ‘awards films’? Where [people say], ‘This feels like it should be BIFA-nominated,’ rather than ‘is it good enough?’”
“It’s important to open people up to those conversations so people can check themselves and check each other,” she said. “We want to make sure everything is looked at with the same eye, regardless of how well it did at the box office or what filmmaker it is, to make sure the we’re judging the film, not previous success. If something is a comedy commercial success, it should not be disregarded,” Gustin added. “We wanted to ignite that conversation in the hope we could roll this out for other awards bodies or judging work in the industry: for example funding, or taking on scripts for production. When you are looking at things from a judging point of view, how do you approach that differently if you are conscious of your biases?”
The 2018 BIFA noms will be announced October 31. The awards ceremony will take place December 2 in London.
