The British Independent Film Awards created in 1998 with a mandate "...to celebrate merit and achievement in independently funded British filmmaking, honour new talent and to promote British films/filmmaking to a wider public...", held their 12th BIFA event, December 6 at The Brewery in Central London, UK.
Top awards were presented to David Bowie's son, commercials director Duncan Jones, whose first feature "Moon" took prizes for best film and debut director prizes. "Moon" is the $5 million budgeted, science fiction/psychological thriller focusing on 'Sam Bell', a solitary 'lunar employee' who experiences a personal crisis at the end of his three-year stint working for 'Lunar Industries' on the moon.
Starring Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey as his robot companion 'GERTY', "Moon" premiered in January at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, released by Sony Classics in New York and Los Angeles in June, then expanded to additional theatres in the US/Canada in July. 
The film was also screened at NASA's Space Center Houston at the request of a professor for a lecture series. "He'd been reading online that we'd done this film about Helium-3 mining, " said Jones, "and that's something that people at NASA are working on..."
Sneak Peek "Moon"...
