British Film Institute: Programming Development Fund

Overview

This fund is primarily intended to operate in tandem with the BFI Film Audience Network so applications which engage with the network members may stand a greater chance of success.

Complementing the BFI’s Distribution Fund – which offers support for the release of films on a title by title basis – the Programming Development Fund is designed to help film programmers and exhibitors put together programmes of films which will be enhanced or underpinned by curation, interpretation or education activity.

How much is available?

Up to £1.4m per annum will be available through the Programming Development Fund over the four years to 2017.

There are three strands of funding available in this Fund:

• Strand 1 is designed only to support the development stage (e.g. research, development, feasibility testing, or piloting) of a subsequent main project which represents a significant risk, either in terms of content, audience, or the scale of investment required. Awards for Strand 1 will be within the range £5,000-£20,000.
• Strand 2 is designed to support projects which have been fully developed and are ready for implementation. Awards for Strand 2 will be within the range £15,000-£150,000.
• Strand 3 is designed to support very large-scale projects only. We expect to make a very limited number of awards under this strand, and we anticipate them to be within the range £150,000 - £500,000.

What they fund

The principal aim of the Programming Development Fund is to support adventurous programming initiatives of scale, quality, curatorial ambition, and with wide reach across the UK.

This fund is primarily intended to operate in tandem with the BFI Film Audience Network3. They will consider proposals that are generated outside of the Network but which meet the fund objectives and utilise, complement or build on the Network infrastructure.

BFI are looking for projects which are new and innovative in terms of content, approach and presentation. The intention is to support activity which is delivered mainly as large screen communal audience experience(s) rather than as small screen (digital device) private content consumption. However, projects which contain some activity on other platforms such as online, mobile apps etc. are welcome especially if they make a demonstrable contribution to audience development and show innovative approaches to achieving the Programming Development Fund objectives.

The BFI hopes to support a wide range of exhibition activity through the Programming Development Fund which could include but is not limited to:

• programmes curated around a particular theme, genre, national cinema or geographic origin
• major retrospectives or seasons
• archive programmes
• touring programmes
• documentary or non-fiction programmes

Who can apply?

You can apply if you are a properly constituted organisation:

• Limited liability Company or Partnership registered at Companies House
• Community Interest Company registered at Companies House
• Local authority or statutory body
• Charity or trust registered with the Charity Commission (including UK universities)
• If not registered with the Charity Commission, universities principally regulated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England

Eligible costs

These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• research and curatorial fees
• staff (although the apportioned costs of existing staff should not exceed 15% of the amount you are asking us for) .
• office costs such as stationery and telephone (this should not exceed 10% of the amount you are asking us for)
• marketing, publicity materials, advertising and/or promotion costs
• venue and/or equipment hire
• training and/or consultancy fees e.g. PR
• payments to rights holders, distributors and sales agents
• transportation costs of prints and/or equipment
• volunteer expenses
• hospitality and/or travel for VIPs
• fees for composers or performers of live music accompaniment
• delivery costs including broadband network hire
• recording of events within the project for legacy purposes
• insurances and/or licences
• production of trailers, event ident, DVDs and/or other merchandising materials
• audit, monitoring and evaluation
• production of filmed content where it forms part of a wider exhibition project and increases understanding of specialised film e.g. school children making a short film onmtheir mobiles in response to a screening within the main programme.
• restoration or digitisation of films onto new formats (but only where this is fundamental to the delivery of the project, and the costs of this are less than 10% of the overall project budget)