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UK Film Council launches new £15m film fund to champion British film

• New £15m film fund opens for business • Experienced team appointed as gatekeepers of the Film Fund • Producers to receive equity share of UK Film Council recoupment • Tim Bevan to chair think tank to identify ways to grow uk film companies of scale • Most significant revision of UK Film Council activities in 10 years

London, 1 April 2010

The UK Film Council today publishes its three year plan and launches its new £15m Film Fund. In developing the final plan, the UK Film Council spent three months consulting on the proposals, engaging with hundreds of people from across the film sector, facilitating more than a dozen consultation sessions and attracting almost 1,000 responses. The plan specifically:

  • opens up for business a £15m-a-year Film Fund (topped-up further by film recoupment) for emerging, experimental and world class filmmakers;
  • ring-fences money for development;
  • confirms production companies will for the first time automatically receive a significant share of the UK Film Council's recoupment from all feature film investments they are involved in, following State Aid approval of the measure by the European Commission;
  • sets up a think tank chaired by Tim Bevan to identify new policy initiatives to grow independent UK film companies of scale;
  • proposes a national web-based talent showcase, to be launched in Autumn 2010, to unearth fresh talent and to broaden the diversity, reach and the opportunities available to all filmmakers who are keen to engage with one another in a national filmmaking community;
  • confirms £5m is allocated to the new Innovation Fund, which will launch in Autumn 2010 (more details to follow);
  • provides £500,000 for film exports for each year of the plan;
  • confirms that 100% of recoupment from the Prints & Advertising Fund - which widens and supports the distribution of selected specialised films and British films - will, like the Film Fund, top up that fund's budget.

Alongside this plan, the DCMS have been leading merger discussions between the UK Film Council and the BFI. These discussions have been underway since August 2009 and continue.

Launching UK Film: Digital innovation and creative excellence, Tim Bevan CBE, Chairman of the UK Film Council, said, "We've set out a renewed mission, a new set of priorities, and a new way of working. With the right level of support, a successful British film industry can continue to help get the UK out of recession, drive innovation and create more highly-skilled jobs. Further tough choices probably lie ahead, but having reduced our overheads by 20% and positively responded to the needs of British filmmakers we're now in the best place we can be to support and promote UK film in the years ahead."

John Woodward, Chief Executive Officer of the UK Film Council, announced that the new £15m-a-year Film Fund had opened its doors for business. Managed by a new team of experienced senior production and development executives, the fund has introduced a brand new online application process in which applicants will set out their creative and strategic visions for their film.

Woodward commented: "The new Film Fund's primary focus is creative excellence. Tanya and her team will support filmmakers who want to put British filmmaking at the centre of our national culture and on the international map. The aim is for the Film Fund to attract the best talent, encourage creative risk taking, and deliver great films to audiences.

"Joining Tanya in the search for creative excellence will be a team of three Senior Production and Development Executives with an impressive and broad range of film industry expertise. Natascha Wharton, Lizzie Francke, and Chris Collins each have big production successes under their belts – together, it's a team that will provide a wide range of expertise and tastes as well as a supportive, energetic and ambitious home for British filmmaking talent.

"The team will all work across the full range of projects in production and development, but individually they will also have specific responsibilities."

  • Natascha Wharton (starting 4 May 2010) will focus on development;
  • Lizzie Francke will focus on experimental feature length films, national engagement and showcasing new talent;
  • Chris Collins will focus on ideas for future film practices for both emerging and established filmmakers, from micro / low budget features and shorts, through to 3D blockbusters.

The Film Fund is open for applications from 1 April, but it will be presenting a more detailed strategy to the UK Film Council Board in the coming months. It has already been agreed that a portion of the £15m budget will be ring-fenced for development – although there will be no automatic assumption that projects developed will become films that the fund would then invest in at the production stage. The remaining budget will be safeguarded for the Film Fund's own production investments. Further details will be announced in the coming months, in addition to details of the Film Fund's non-London investment target and how the new online showcase will operate.

For more information, please contact:

Oliver Rawlins, Head of Communications
T: 020 7861 7505
M: 07855 326362
E: oliver.rawlins@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

Oliver Foster, Head of Press and Public Affairs
T: 020 7861 7508
M: 07920 560509
E: oliver.foster@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

UK Film Council Press Office
T: 020 7861 7901
E: press@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

Notes to Editors

UK Film: Digital innovation and creative excellence is available online at: http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

Natascha Wharton

Natascha has been at Working Title Films for most of her film career.  During her time there,  she set up WT2, Working Title's low budget film division.  The first film through that division was Billy Elliot, on which she was an Executive Producer.  She was Executive Producer on a further ten films through WT2, including Shaun of the Dead, Ali G Indahouse and My Little Eye. Later, when WT2 was absorbed into WT's main slate Development Department, she became Head of Development and was Executive Producer on Hot Fuzz.

Lizzie Francke

Lizzie started her career as a film critic in the early 1990s, contributing to titles such as The Guardian, The Observer, Sight and Sound and Screen International. During this period she also wrote the book Script Girls: The History of Women Screenwriters in Hollywood. In 1997 she was appointed Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and in her five years there re-established the festival as a key showcase for British cinema. She moved into production in 2001, first for Little Bird, where she co-produced Marc Evans's thriller Trauma, then as Executive Producer for EM Media, where her credits include Control, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, A Complete History of My Sexual Failures and Better Things. She also acted as the British co-producer on Vinyan, the second film from the cult Belgium director Fabrice du Welz, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Lizzie has been a Development Producer for the UK Film Council's Development Fund since January 2008. She managed the First Feature stream, which is dedicated to emerging writing and directing talent. Films that she worked on during that period include the The Arbor, directed by Clio Barnard and debuting at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, and artist Gillian Wearing's directorial debut Self Made, which is currently in post-production.

Chris Collins

Chris started his career working in television documentaries, after which he joined BFI Productions in 1997 as a development and production executive, where he oversaw films such as John Maybury's Love is the Devil and Jasmin Dizdar's Beautiful People. He then spent ten years in the independent sector as a producer working with filmmakers such as Pawel Pawlikowski, Francesca Joseph and Sarah Gavron on critical successes Last Resort, My Summer of Love, Tomorrow La Scala! and Brick Lane. He also worked with BBC Films on a series of shorts with filmmakers like Vito Rocco and Andrea Arnold. Since 2007 Chris worked as a Development Producer in the UK Film Council's Development Fund where he managed the funding strand for experienced writers, directors and producers. Projects developed range from new screenplays by Duane Hopkins, Noel Clarke, Matt Greenhalgh and Hanif Kureishi to the recently completed Tamara Drewe, written by Moira Buffini from Posy Simmond's graphic novel and directed by Stephen Frears.

UK FILM COUNCIL (www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk)

  • The UK Film Council is the Government and Lottery-backed lead agency for film in the UK, supporting the UK film industry, celebrating UK film culture and nurturing UK film talent at home and abroad. 
  • Since its creation in 2000 the UK Film Council has backed more than 900 films, shorts and features, which have won over 300 awards and entertained more than 200 million people around the world. The UK Film Council generates £5 for every £1 of Lottery money it invests.
  • Its support develops new filmmakers, funds exciting new British films and gets a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK. It also invests in training British talent, promoting Britain as an international filmmaking location and raising the profile of British films abroad. In addition, it funds the British Film Institute.
  • Films backed by the UK Film Council include Bend it like Beckham, Bright Star, The Constant Gardener, Fish Tank, Gosford Park, Happy-Go-Lucky, In the Loop, The Last King of Scotland, Man on Wire, Nowhere Boy, Red Road, St Trinian's, This is England, Touching the Void, Vera Drake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
  • Current UK Film Council funding initiatives include:

    • the world's first Digital Screen Network, which has invested in 240 digital screens in cinemas across the country, increasing film choice, bringing the 3D experience to a wider audience, and ensuring the UK has more digital screens than any other European country;
    • over 200 film societies and independent regional film venues;
    • UK film festivals, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival;
    • working with Skillset, the UK skills and training industry body for the creative industries, to enable almost 7000 people to further their filmmaking careers;
    • giving over 20,000 young people the opportunity to get involved in filmmaking through First Light Movies and Mediabox;
    • sponsoring the pilot and now the current rollout of FILMCLUB to thousands of schools, introducing new generations of children to the best of British and international cinema.