Kneecap Makes BAFTA Longlist in 7 Categories for the 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards
Date Posted: January 3, 2025
BAFTA today announced the longlists of films and talent advancing to Round Two of voting for the 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards. Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap has been longlisted in 7 categories for the 2025 awards:
- Best Film
- Outstanding British Film
- Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer
- Film Not in the English Language
- Original Screenplay
- Casting
- Editing
Peppiatt’s film stars the members of the West Belfast rap trio Kneecap (Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí) alongside an ensemble cast including Oscar® nominee Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty, Jessica Reynolds and Adam Best.
Set in West Belfast in 2019, when fate brings Belfast schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of Naoise and Liam Óg, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish language, the trio create their own genre of Irish punk rap, melding the Irish and English language with electrifying energy. Their writing and performance reimagine what rap can be as a creative and cultural force, rooted in community. Kneecap ultimately become the unlikely figureheads of a Civil Rights movement to save their mother tongue, upending preconceptions about language and place and spearheading a cultural revival and interest from their legions of young followers.
BAFTA continues to represent the UK’s largest film industry voting body with 8,100 creative practitioners from all corners of the UK and global film industry. See the full Longlists for all 25 categories including Best Film, Director, Cinematography, Casting, Documentary, Film Not in the English Language, the four performance categories, a new Children’s & Family Film category, and more, are published here.
The nominations for the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 will be announced by 2024 EE Rising Star winner Mia-McKenna Bruce and BAFTA-winner Will Sharpe on Wednesday 15 January at 12 midday (GMT), from BAFTA’s HQ at 195 Piccadilly, London and streamed live via BAFTA’s YouTube channel.
The EE BAFTA Film Awards ceremony will once again be held at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in central London, and broadcast on Sunday 16 February on BBC One and iPlayer.
The film was produced by Trevor Birney and Jack Tarling for Fine Point Films and Mother Tongues Films, with Patrick O’Neill at Wildcard acting as Co-Producer. Funding for the film was provided by Northern Ireland Screen, the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, the BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), Coimisiún na Meán, TG4, Dias Feld and Kamila Serkebaeva, with backing from Great Point Media.
