Winners announced for 2020 Virtual London Film Festival Audience Awards

The winners of the inaugural BFI Virtual London Film Festival Audience Awards have been announced.

Another Round, directed by Thomas Vinterberg, was named best film.

The story follows an unappreciated tutor, husband and father, played by Mads Mikkelsen, who tries to medicate his unhappiness with alcohol.

Vinterberg said: “Thank you to the audience at the London Film Festival for bringing this award to us.

“We are very proud to receive this from a British audience; it’s a great honour. We are so sad that we can’t be there.”

Benjamin Ree’s The Painter And The Thief was named as best documentary.

It tells the story of artist Barbora Kysilkova painting the portrait of a man who stole some of her paintings from an Oslo art gallery.

Best short film went to Shuttlecock, directed by Tommy Gillard, while the award for the best piece of extended reality/immersive art went to To Miss The Ending, directed by Anna West and David Callanan.

Cathy Brady, who directed Wildfire, was awarded the IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker Bursary.

The £50,000 bursary is awarded to someone who is presenting work at the BFI London Film Festival for the first or second time.

Christoph Grainger-Herr, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen, BFI chief executive Ben Roberts and actor and screenwriter Michaela Coel selected Brady as the winner.

I May Destroy You creator Coel said: “Wildfire is a compelling story, expertly told and unlike anything we had seen in UK filmmaking before.

“Cathy weaves an emotionally rich, intimate story of two sisters elegantly framed against a wider, politically charged backdrop, she says so much without saying very much at all.

“Great films make you think and jolt you out of your comfort zone, in the very best way Wildfire was deliciously uncomfortable.”

The BFI London Film Festival came to a close on Sunday evening.