Creative England doubles production pot to £1m to support regional filmmakers
Creative England has announced on the back of a successful first six months under the stewardship of Richard Holmes its Lottery-based Production Fund is set to double from £500,000 to £1m for 2014/15.
Individual awards are increasing to a maximum of £200,000 per project and will now include feature films with a budget of up to £2m, enabling the fund to become more open to upcoming and established film makers.
Projects with strong regional elements both in front of and behind the camera will remain as the priority, and plans are afoot to offer support on pre-sales and UK Tax Credits for certain awarded productions through the Regional Growth Fund.
Senior film executive – production at Creative England Holmes said: “We're immensely proud of the investments we've made to date…With this increased funding we want to create more opportunities for filmmakers in what we all know is a tough financial climate for independent film. We also want to encourage filmmakers to come forward with projects that are intended to engage with broader audiences such as comedies, thrillers and horror. These films are hard to get right, of course, but our Production Fund is there to take risks and invest in projects that are looking to experiment with innovative financial models.”
Since October 2012 the Fund has invested some £650,000 in projects including Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years; Light Years, Esther May Campbell’s feature debut follow up to BAFTA award winning short, September; Rob Cannan’s second documentary feature The Lovers and the Despot; music documentary Orion: The man who would be king, by Jeanie Finlay; and Peter Middleton and James Spinney’s Notes on Blindness.
The Creative England Production Fund is supported by the BFI and funded through the National Lottery.
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