Bafta Rising Star Award: Kingsley Ben-Adir and Bukky Bakray among this year's nominees

Previous winners of the public-voted award include Tom Hardy and Daniel Kaluuya

British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir is up for the EE Rising Star Award at this year's Baftas. Reuters

One Night in Miami actor Kingsley Ben-Adir and The Personal History of David Copperfield actress Morfydd Clark are among this year's nominees for the EE Rising Star Award.

The award is dished out at the annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, which this year will take place on April 11.

The list of five contenders, all British, also includes Rocks actress Bukky Bakray, Conrad Khan, who was in The Huntsman: Winter's War and County Lines, and Sope Dirisu, known for His House and Gangs of London.

Ben-Adir plays Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, the directorial debut of Regina King, while Clark is known for her performance in horror flick Saint Maud. 

Previous winners of the award, voted for by the public, include Oscar nominees Tom Hardy and Daniel Kaluuya.

The jury for this year's Rising Star Award shortlist included television producer Krishnendu Majumdar, producer and director Anand Tucker and actresses Naomi Ackie, Jo Hartley and Alicia Vikander.

The full list of nominees for this year's Bafta awards will be announced next week.

Last year's awards, Britain’s top film honours, drew criticism over the lack of diversity in the acting categories, leading to a review by the academy and changes to its membership, voting and campaigning procedures.

The measures include recruiting 1,000 new members from under-represented groups to join the current 6,700-strong voting academy of film industry professionals.

"We've made a number of changes to ensure ... a level playing field that every film and every performance and every director has the chance for their work to be seen," said Bafta chief executive Amanda Berry.

She said details on how April's ceremony would take place would be announced in coming weeks.