BFI Doc Society’s Research & Development Fund (UK)

The fund recognises the quality of difference in perspective, the importance of who is telling the story and strong collaborations. They invite local stories and encourage films that take creative leaps and bring fresh vision to the form.

The RAD Fund only supports documentaries and non-fiction immersive projects that are at the beginning of the development process and that are unlikely to be fully commercially financed and would therefore benefit from National Lottery funding.

Core Priorities

• As a BFI National Lottery funding delegate partner, Doc Society will apply the following six priorities:
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion: addressing under-representation in perspective and representation, talent and recruitment, agency and opportunities, widening the range of voices and audiences served.
  • Impact and audience: supporting projects with a strong cultural or progressive impact for audiences.
  • Talent development and progression: supporting early career filmmakers (producers, writers and directors) and projects with a reasonable proportion of early career cast and crew.
  • Risk: supporting projects that take creative risks.
  • UK-wide: increasing the number of projects and filmmakers outside London and the South East, looking at location and representation.
  • Environmental sustainability: addressing sustainability both creatively and practically.

Funding Information

• The amount that you are applying for must be no less than £3,000 and no more than £5,000 for a single project, and no less than £3,000 and no more than £10,000 within a single application covering multiple projects.

Eligible Projects

• This RAD Fund will enable filmmakers, who are unable to access commercial financing, to take the time required to actively explore and develop their project(s).
• The RAD Fund can support projects from:
  • producer and director teams working together on one or more project.
  • producers working on more than one project, with one or more directors.
  • directors without producers in place.

Eligibility Criteria

• The following criteria apply to all applications being submitted:
  • They expect the lead applicant to be the producer or director of the project(s).
  • Applicants can apply either as an individual or through their UK registered company.
  • Directors should be applying with their first or second documentary feature film, or non-fiction immersive project.
  • Producers should identify as emerging or mid-career in their field, having produced no more than 3 feature documentaries already.
  • Directors and producers must be over 18 and not in full-time education. This means they need to have fully completed any student work, meaning submitted course materials, final project and/or dissertation and have completed all examinations in a final year of study, and not be entering a further year of study before summer 2024.
  • Directors and producers should wait to hear the outcome of any application to the RAD Fund before submitting another.
• All projects must:
  • if intended as a feature film, have an intended length of 70 minutes and above. There is not a required intended duration for immersive work, but the project needs to be of sufficient scale to warrant significant (e.g. at least six-figure) finance were it to proceed to production;
  • be for stand-alone works of non-fiction in live action, immersive or animated form (not series or episodic works);
  • be seeking between £3,000 and £5,000 where the applicant is an individual director or a producer/director team with a single project;
  • be seeking between £3,000 and £10,000 where the applicant is a producer with more than one project;
  • be in the early stages of development and capable of delivering development materials within 3 months of contracting.

Ineligible

You’re not eligible to apply for this funding if your project (or one or more of your projects, if you are applying to develop more than one):

• already has a complete treatment or pitch deck/equivalent format for immersive projects;
• is not a work of non-fiction in live action, immersive or animation form;
• is a feature documentary film idea intended to be less than 70 minutes in length;
• is intended primarily for broadcast television;
• has an episodic or series format;
• focusses on another art form such as literature, dance on film, poetry on film, opera or artists’ moving image;
• has a director or producer who is not UK-based.

For more information, visit BFI Doc Society.