Shortlisting Panel Announced for IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association With the BFI

London – Swiss luxury watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen is launching a limited edition timepiece in celebration of its partnership with the BFI (British Film Institute). The launch of the special edition coincides with the 60th anniversary of the BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express®, which runs from 5–16 October this year.

This year, for the first time, the partnership with the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) also includes the IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI, a £50,000 bursary given to a UK-based writer/director and has a first or second feature-length fiction film premiering in the Official Selection at the LFF. This award is the only one of its kind in the British film industry.

With shortlisting currently underway, a prestigious panel including director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Joe Oppenheimer, Commissioning Executive of BBC Films, and Rose Garnett, Head of Creative at Film4, will join Clare Stewart, Director of the BFI London Film Festival and Ben Roberts, Director of the BFI Film Fund in selecting the three filmmakers for consideration. These three finalists will be announced at the BFI on 20 September 2016. Amanda Nevill, CEO of the BFI, Georges Kern, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen, and a key representative of the UK film industry, to be announced soon, will decide which filmmaker benefits from this extraordinary opportunity and will award them the bursary at the IWC Gala Dinner in honour of the BFI held on 4 October 2016.

For more information please contact paula.joof@tvcgroup.com +44 ​7940 381 043 or roslyn.duffy@tvcgroup.com +44 ​7950 968297.