Creative Challenge - BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund

The BFI National Lottery Creative Challenge Fund aims to decentralise project development in a way that is complementary to our typical development support. It will support organisations to run creative development programmes, such as labs and workshops series, to stimulate a healthier, wider ecosystem in which emerging UK filmmakers can develop new projects. We will issue one challenge per funding round aiming to stimulate a range of organisations to submit applications to run programmes addressing this challenge. Through this we aim to make targeted interventions in the areas of the industry that our challenges focus on and to galvanise support for a greater range of talent. All programmes must be designed to benefit filmmakers resident in the UK.

In time, the fund hopes to have supported a thriving ecosystem of programmes that continue to respond to evolving needs. It will run initially between 2023-26, with around five separate challenges issued across this period; in all we expect to support around 24 separate development programmes. No single challenge will be able to serve all parts of the industry, but we aim across the three years to fund a mosaic of interventions that touches multiple areas that are currently underserved.

For more information, visit the creative challenge Fund on the BFI's website.