What we fund
Nurturing film talent, assisting our industry and celebrating film culture
Film production and development
Our Film Fund is a new unified production and development fund dedicated to British filmmaking.
We will support filmmakers in the UK who are emerging or world-class and are capable of creating distinctive and entertaining work. We have £15 million a year to invest across the development, production and completion of feature films. Being supported by the BFI means more than just being given funding. It means that your project can be assisted at every step of the journey by our team, who can offer advice and practical help with many aspects of developing and producing your film.
We welcome applications for all kinds of film - from commercial mainstream to experimental, from genre movies to personal stories, from documentaries to animation to live-action fiction.
For more information on making an application click here.
Film distribution and export
We want to widen the choice of films shown to audience at UK cinemas. Our Prints and Advertising Fund provides £4 million a year to support the distribution of films that might otherwise not be shown widely, among them, Submarine, TT3D: Closer to the Edge, We Need To Talk About Kevin and The Skin I Live In.
Our Film Export Fund provides access to funding to enhance the export opportunities of British films that have been selected to appear at important international film festivals.
Schemes previously funded by the UK Film Council:
Cinema
To help make going to the pictures an even better experience the UK Film Council invested in 240 digital cinema screens across the UK. We have also provided improvement grants to independent cinemas and funded the Independent Cinema Office and the British Federation of Film Societies.
Film education, culture and archives
The UK Film Council promoted knowledge about film through a range of funding schemes, including the Archive Fund, First Light and FILMCLUB.
Festivals and audience support schemes
Stimulating greater audience choice was one of the four key aims of the UK Film Council and supporting film festivals is a great way to do this. They funded the BFI London Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival as well as regional festivals across the UK. FindAnyFilm.com - launched by the UK Film Council and now funded by the BFI - is one of the UK’s leading services connecting audiences to film experiences.
Skills
The UK Film Council provided £3.25 million a year to Skillset to support a national film skills and training strategy.
National and regional film
The UK Film Council provided around £6.3 million a year to national and regional film bodies, supporting their efforts to build a clear film strategy and provide financial support for a wide range of film related activities.
