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Shame, Tinker, Tailor, Tyrannosaur. It's been a brilliant year for indie films. And those are just the three with the most nominations in the British Independent Film Awards, which seem designed to make life as difficult as possible for everyone.

Each of those films has seven nominations each, including Best British Independent Film, Best Actor and Best Director. How on earth are we meant to choose which is best?

And then there are all the others. In second place, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Kill List both have six nominations, followed closely by Submarine with five. Meanwhile, The Awakening and Jane Eyre join the fray in the Best Actress categories, while The Guard sees Brendan Gleeson start to collect his inevitable haul of Best Actor nods.

Attack The Block's Joe Cornish and Ralph Fiennes for Coriolanus are up for Best Director, and Best Newcomer is surely destined to hang around the neck of Albatross's Jessica Brown Findlay. It's also great to see the Raindance Award mentioning Black Pond, A Thousand Kisses Deep and Acts of Godfrey. All three are rather lovely.

But are we really meant to be able to say who is better out of Senna and Project Nim? Tinker Tailor and Shame? Tyrannosaur and Submarine? How are us mere humans meant to pick? HOW? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. THEY'RE ALL REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I HATE YOU BIFA AWARDS. YOU SUCK.

 

The awards are handed out on Sunday 4th December - and will be broadcast live on LOVEFiLM. Which is another superb decision from BIFA. Damn them.

Read on for the full list of nominations.

Director: Niall MacCormick
Cast: Jessica Brown Findlay, Felicity Jones, Sebastian Koch, Julia Ormond
Certificate: 15
Trailer

Aspiring writer Emilia Conan-Doyle (yes, she is related to the Sherlock Holmes author) breezes into The Cliff House, a boring B&B on The Isle of Man. She's horrible, she's likeable, she's incredibly hot. She swiftly makes friends with the bookish Beth (Jones), who's growing up with aims of going to Oxford. And, of course, she's a lightning rod for Beth's dad, Jonathan (Koch). And his lightning rod.

A failed author struggling to repeat the success of his first book, Jonathan's a pretentious perv, who swans about the attic all day wearing scarfs and jerking off - what else is there to do on The Isle of Man?

It's no surprise that he gets excited by the arrival of Emilia Conan-Doyle (yes, she is related to the Sherlock Holmes author), but then not much of Albatross is that surprising.

While others were off doing whatever cool people do on Thursday nights, I went to see the rather likeable Albatross, which is out next month.

Written by first-timer Tamzin Rafn, it's a comedy-drama/coming-of-age/naughty-sex-with-a-young-person/bed-and-breakfast-based type film about the wayward Emelia, who turns up at a guest house on the Isle of Man and generally makes everything better.

Needless to say, Felicity Jones, Julia Ormond and Sebastian Koch are great in it, but the show is inevitably stolen by another performer (a special mention goes to the excellent newcomer Jessica Brown Findlay).

But who is this scene-stealing actor? Before you rush off and watch the Albatross trailer for yourself, here's a SUPER MEGA EXCLUSIVE clip from Niall MacCormick's coming-of-age film to introduce you to its star player...

Director: Niall MacCormick
Cast: Felicity Jones, Jessica Brown Findlay, Sebastian Koch, Julia Ormond
Certificate: TBC
Release Date: Friday 14th October

A fresh, modern-day coming-of-age tale focusing on 17-year-old force of nature Emelia (newcomer Jessica Brown Findlay) who bursts into the lives of the dysfunctional Fischer family when she is hired to work in their guest house in a sleepy town on the South Coast.

Beth Fischer (Felicity Jones), also seventeen, is cramming for her A-Levels, in a desperate bid to escape to university, whilst dad Jonathan (Sebastian Koch), once a best-selling author, is suffering from writer’s block much to the annoyance of frustrated mum Joa (Julia Ormond) who runs the hotel and laments the promising acting career she once left behind.

Can Emelia and Beth escape the ties of small town existence and free themselves of the Albatross around their necks?