By Ray Bennett
The Joy Division biography “Control” was the big winner at the British Independent Film Awards Wednesday night with five prizes including best picture.
Anton Corbijn was honored twice as best director and best first-time director while Sam Riley, who portrayed doomed pop singer Ian Curtis, was named most promising newcomer. Toby Kebbell, who played the band’s manager Rob Gretton, won the best supporting acting prize.
Riley lost the best actor prize to Viggo Mortensen (pictured) as a Russian thug in David Cronenburg’s crime picture “Eastern Promises.” Judi Dench was named best actress for her performance as a menacing teacher in Richard Eyre’s “Notes on a Scandal.”
Patrick Marber won the screenplay award for “Notes” and Mark Tildesley picked up the award for production design for his work on Danny Boyle’s sci-fi movie “Sunshine.”
Other prizes went to Germany’s Oscar winning “The Lives of Others,” directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, for best foreign independent feature; “Black Gold,” directed by Marc and Nick Francis, for best achievement in production; and Julien Temple’s “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten” for best documentary.
“Dog Altogether” was named best short film; a special jury prize went to Andi Engel, Pamela Engel and Robert Beeson of Artificial Eye; and “The Inheritance” won the Raindance Award.
Career awards went to actors Ray Winstone and Daniel Craig.