BFI National Lottery Creative Challenge Fund

They are seeking organisations to design and run development programmes for UK filmmakers developing narrative, documentary or animation feature film projects or narrative immersive media projects.

The aim is to support the programme participants with the advancement of their projects through a structured development environment, enabling them to go on to receive financial support from the marketplace.

Their current challenge is “increasing opportunities for UK creatives to attend feature film and immersive project development programmes”.

The challenge priorities are to increase:

• the diversity of genres in feature films and immersive projects in development
• the number of animated feature films and immersive projects in development
• opportunities for early career producers to build viable projects
• opportunity for projects that have scale and a greater chance of a bigger audience impact domestically or internationally.

Their funding aims are:

1. Equity, diversity and inclusion — people from under-represented groups across the UK access the support they need to develop their careers and skills.
2. Impact and audience — people across the UK access a wider choice of film and the moving image, including stories that reflect their lives.
3. Talent development and progression — creative talent is supported and nurtured, as they emerge and throughout their careers and more people understand how to express their creativity through stories on screen.
4. Creative Risk — people are better enabled to innovate and experiment creatively; a wider range of stories on screen are told that otherwise would not be.
5. UK-wide — everyone across the UK should be able to experience and create the widest range of screen culture. They should feel the benefits from the screen sector in terms of jobs and growth too.
6. Environmental sustainability — screen organisations significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

Your organisation must be legally constituted and centrally managed in the UK as one of the following:

• a limited company registered at Companies House
• a community interest company registered at Companies House
• a limited liability partnership (LLP) registered at Companies House
• a UK combined or local authority or statutory body
• a UK charity or trust registered with the Charity Commission

You must be able to demonstrate:

• previous experience in designing and delivering a creative project development programme
• specialist expertise in the projects you are proposing to support
  • for example, expertise in the development of feature films, animations, immersive projects that have received UK distribution and reached UK audiences
• suitable delivery infrastructure
• relevant collaborations, partnerships and industry relationships

The amount of funding depends on the timeframe and ambition of your programme. You can apply for between £12,000 and £150,000 for one edition (or call) for your programme which should run for a maximum of 12 months.