BFI National Lottery Short Form Animation Funding (United Kingdom)

The Fund supports narrative short form projects in any animated technique or genre, which are unlikely to be fully commercially financed and would therefore benefit from National Lottery support.

This Fund aims to give UK animators who have gained industry attention for their work the chance to create a project at a higher budget level. It supports short form animated work as an artform in itself, as well as a potential springboard for filmmakers to move on to longer form work. Films supported by previous rounds of the Fund have found success at film festivals, award ceremonies and through online distribution. They have allowed filmmakers to practice new approaches and animation techniques. They are looking for projects that will enable their teams to advance their creative practice, take risks and rise to a new level of ambition.

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

• Eligible applicants can seek production funding of between £30,000 to £120,000.
• They don’t expect to provide many awards at the maximum level of £120,000 per project and may offer applicants a lower amount than the one initially requested.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicant producer
  • All applications for funding must be made by your producer, who must:
    • apply through a limited company registered and centrally managed in the UK
    • be a separate person to the director or writer-director
    • have a track record in successfully delivering moving image projects. These could be feature films, short films, television, music videos, immersive projects or artists’ moving image work. They cannot accept applications from producers whose only previous work is not screen-based
    • only be attached to a maximum of three applications submitted to the Fund, per funding round, although they will only support one application per producer in each funding round
    • be seeking funding of no more than £120,000 per project
    • have secured, or have a contractual right to secure, the rights (including any underlying rights) in the idea you are proposing. This includes use of any necessary archive or biographical material. You will be required to provide proof of this, prior to any funding offer or payment of any award from the BFI
    • either through your applicant producing company, or, if relevant, the group of companies to which your applicant producing company belongs, not have already received public funding or subsidies, labelled as “minimal funding assistance” by the relevant awarding body totalling £315,000 or more in the period covering the current financial year and the two financial years immediately preceding the current financial year. The application will also be ineligible if the amount applied for takes your applicant company or relevant group of companies over this threshold of £315,000
• Director or writer-director
  • The director or writer-director of your project can only be attached to two applications submitted to the short form animation fund, per funding round.
• Filmmaking team
  • All teams must include, at the point of application:
    • a writer, director (or writer-director) and producer who are all over 18 and not in full-time education. If any of these individuals are currently in full-time education, you may include them in your application provided that their course or studies will be completed within two months of the closing date of the call for applications, and that they would be available from that point to work full-time on the project
• Projects
  • All projects must:
    • be a single, animated short film. They define an animated film as one in which animation is used throughout the majority of the film, and which features a significant number of animated major characters
    • be a stand-alone piece of narrative work, with a maximum intended running time of up to 15 minutes
    • have a fully developed script or storyboard, which will need to be submitted as part of the application. The fund is not intended for the development of projects, so the project needs to be sufficiently developed to be nearing production in order for you to make an application
    • be capable of qualifying for certification as a British film through the applicable film or animation cultural test.
    • be capable of obtaining a BBFC certificate that is no more restrictive than BBFC ‘18’.
    • clearly engage with the core priorities.

For more information, visit BFI.