BFI NETWORK England Short Film Funding Program – UK

The BFI NETWORK is a collaboration between the British Film Institute (BFI), national film organisations and leading cultural venues around the UK.

The fund supports projects with directors based in England and is run in partnership with the five English Film Hubs. The Hubs employ BFI NETWORK Talent Executives who review applications and work with filmmakers on their funded projects. This England-wide partnership means that more voices in more places can contribute to distinctive, original storytelling.

This fund is for fiction shorts, in live action, animation and immersive/VR. The use of the word ‘film’ in these guidelines encompasses each of those forms and media.

They support standalone projects. This may include those that have potential to be developed into longer form or serial form in the future. The fund is intended to stimulate new ideas and stories, so it doesn’t support adaptations of existing material, unless a writer is adapting their own work for the screen (and if necessary, has secured the right to do so).

Core Priorities

• They apply the following six priorities when reviewing applications.
  • 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

• You can apply for funds from £5,000 to £25,000.

Key Performance Indicators

• The BFI will measure the success of this short film funding using the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
  • Number of projects supported – 25
  • Number of applications received – 600
  • Applications received from outside of London and the South East (in terms of director location) – 50%
  • Funded projects completing carbon foot printing – 100%
  • Funded projects taking part in dedicated training in environmental sustainability for film – 90%
• Inclusion targets for writers, directors and producers supported:
  • The inclusion targets for writers, directors and producers supported are:
    • disabled (including those with a longstanding physical or mental condition and those identifying as D/deaf or neurodiverse) – 18%
    • Black and Global Majority (London) – 40%
    • Black and Global Majority (outside London) – 30%
    • those identifying within the gender binary (also monitoring trans and non-binary identities) – 50:50 gender
    • sexual identity (those identifying as LGB+) – 10%
    • working-class background – 39%

Eligible Projects

• All projects submitted to this fund must:
  • clearly engage with some of the core priorities
  • be a standalone fiction short film in live action, animation or immersive/VR
  • have an intended length of up to 15 minutes, including credits
    • a typical page of dialogue will roughly equal a minute of on-screen time
    • they welcome and encourage projects of different lengths, whether a five-minute gem or a 15-minute masterpiece
  • have a script (or equivalent document for immersive/VR or animation such as a storyboard)
    • the script (or equivalent format) must be original to your writer, and not an adaptation of third-party existing material
    • should be no longer than 16 pages (including the title page) for directors with some narrative filmmaking experience or 11 pages (including the title page) for new directors
    • they would consider your director to be a new director if they are moving into filmmaking from a different medium for example, theatre, or if they haven’t yet directed a fiction short film.
  • be seeking funding of between £5,000 and £25,000
  • they encourage applicants to carefully consider their level of experience when deciding the scale of project and the amount of funding to apply for. Most of the funded filmmakers don’t receive the maximum award of £25,000 and they encourage very early-stage filmmakers to apply for a lower amount.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicant (lead producer)
  • All applications for funding must be submitted by your project’s producer who must:
    • be a UK resident
    • not be attached as the film’s director – they can be the film’s writer
    • be the ‘lead applicant’ to whom, if your application is successful, the award will be made – the producer will own the rights in the completed project
  • If applying through a production company, your producer should ensure the company is registered and centrally managed in the UK. The producer will also need to be either:
    • registered as a director of the company
    • a permanent employee of the company
  • If the producer has been formally paired with the company as part of a BFI NETWORK Talent Lab, they’re also eligible to apply.
  • If you’re applying through a production company, the company will own the rights in the completed project.
• Filmmaking team
  • Your team must be made up of at least two people across the three creative roles of writer, producer, and director (except that a producer and director combination is not eligible to apply).
  • All team members need to be fully available to carry out their role and not take on potentially conflicting roles on the same project.
  • All team members must:
    • be over 18
    • be able to demonstrate a creative track record – this can be in film, television, documentary, theatre or other art forms and can be student work or work created at a grassroots level or without commercial or institutional funding
    • have finished full-time education (or be set to complete full-time education by 1 August 2024)
      • any student work will need to be fully completed by 1 August 2024, meaning course materials, final projects and/or dissertations have been submitted, all examinations are complete, and you will not be entering a further year of study later in 2024
• The director
  • Along with the above requirements for all team members, the director or writer-director for your project must also:
    • be resident in England
    • not have directed a fiction feature film that has received UK distribution
    • if they self-financed and directed a feature, or made a feature that did not achieve commercial distribution (theatrically or via a major online platform) in the UK, they may apply
  • Your application will be considered by a Talent Executive in the region where your director lives. They’ll ask for proof of address for your director as part of the application.
• The writer
  • The writer and director can be the same person, as can the writer and producer. The writer can be based anywhere in the UK as long as they’re not the writer-director (who must be resident in England).
• Co-writers, directors and producers
  • If your team includes co-producers, co-writers or co-directors, they can be based outside the UK as long as the main person in each role lives in the UK and the director is based in England.
• Applying with more than one project
  • Directors, writer-directors and writers may only be attached to a single application per round. This also applies to co-writers and co-directors.
  • Producers may be attached to two applications providing they are in the role of producer on both.
  • Writer-producers can be attached to two applications, one in the role of writer-producer and one additional application as a producer.
  • It is fine for members of the core team to take on crew or ‘below the line’ roles other than writer, writer-director or producer on additional projects.
  • If a writer, director and/or producer is involved in other applications that are seeking funds (or have secured funds) from the BFI, including BFI NETWORK, you should let them know in your application.

For more information, visit BFI.