The BFI has announced its latest UK Global Screen Fund awards, financed through the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The awards allocate a further £1,233,203 to seven new projects through the International Co-production fund and £510,109 through the International Distribution fund.
This latest round of international co-production awards, which support UK producers to collaborate with international partners and create new global projects, sees the seven UK independent companies collectively collaborating with 13 territories, and will be the first time the fund has supported co-productions with North Macedonia, Malaysia, India, and Portugal.
The funding, which supports two animated television series and five feature films, including two documentaries, will also back partnerships with Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Mexico and Spain.
Click here to see details of the productions.
To date, this strand has now awarded over £11.6 million to 73 co-productions, supporting partnerships with 37 territories.
The latest round of International Distribution funding, which supports UK producers and sales agents with the promotion and distribution of UK feature films in international territories, is allocated through Festival Launch and Prints & Advertising (P&A) grants.
Festival Launch grants supported premieres at major international festivals including Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, at which Ireland/UK coproduction Ancestors won the FIPRESCI prize. Projects supported with P&A grants for the release of a single UK film across a grouping of at least four international territories are & Sons,
Everybody Digs Bill Evans, On the Sea, Sunny Dancer and Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day.
To date, 190 International Distribution awards have been made, totalling £4.6m. These latest awards follow the recent expansion of the UK Global Screen Fund, which saw its budget increase from £7m to over £18m per year for 2026 to 2029 as part of the UK Government’s Screen Growth Package.
Since April, the following brand new funds have launched, following extensive sector consultation and building on the successful interventions made since the fund launched in 2021:
- Video Game Release: growing exports and global demand for UK independent
narrative video games, enabling them to secure wider and higher profile
releases - Slate Development: supporting producers to develop slates of projects with
international appeal and audience reach - Film Sales Minimum Guarantee: supporting UK sales agents in paying sales MGs
to secure international sales rights for UK films - A Majority Co-production offering, focused on animation and documentaries is set to follow early
next year.
The BFI has also unveiled the agencies appointed to deliver the new 2026-29 framework for Promoting UK Screen Services, which consolidates all international screen sector promotional activities under one combined ScreenUK umbrella. They are: Premier PR, Music, and Four Marketing and Media.
Denitsa Yordanova, Director of UK Global Screen Fund and International Funds, said: “We are very excited to announce this latest round of distribution and co-production awards as we enter the next stage of our fund’s evolution, thanks to expanded investment from UK government, with four brand new funding streams and a new ScreenUK promotional strategy being launched throughout 2026 and 2027.
We also look forward to working with the stellar grouping of expert agencies we have just appointed to further champion the UK screen sector through our new framework for international promotional activities delivered as part of ScreenUK.”
