BFI NETWORK England: Early Development Fund (UK)

It supports writers who do not yet have the first draft of a script (or equivalent format for immersive work), to produce an initial treatment a piece of writing that outlines the story, characters, themes and structure of the project and related materials like a mood board or other visual content. The Fund supports long-form live-action, immersive and animation fiction projects.

This fund supports projects with writers based in England who have not yet written a feature film or immersive work that has been produced and received a distribution deal in the UK.

Priority Areas

• You will be asked to address some of these directly in your application to them.
  • 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 funding of between £3,000 and £5,000 to support writing a treatment and creating related materials, and if you’re working with a producer their time spent on the project.

Ineligible Costs

• Costs the fund does not cover include:
  • payments to option the rights to adapt pre-existing, published works for the screen (such a project would be ineligible)
  • general overheads or subsistence
  • at Stage 1: script editor or any script-stage work
  • legal fees or costs of preparing writer agreements or similar (because a writer agreement granting the writer’s
  • copyright to a production company is not required at this stage)
  • director fees or retainers
  • flights within or between England, Scotland and Wales, unless necessary due to an access requirement
  • travel by taxi unless necessary due to an access requirement
  • first class travel
  • general subsistence costs
  • production costs, including for pilot material
  • activity that is already specifically supported by another external source of funding
  • cost incurred prior to an offer of funding from BFI

Eligible Projects

• Types of projects BFI Network Funding can support:
  • Fiction short films in live action, animation or immersive media.
  • Documentary short films.
  • Early stage development of documentary feature films.
  • Early stage development of fiction feature films in live action, animation and immersive media.
  • Immersive media is like stepping into a whole new world through technology.
  • Specialist equipment is often used such as virtual reality headsets which let the viewer explore and experience media in 3D.

Ineligible Projects

• You’re not eligible to apply for this funding if your project:
  • Already has a complete first or later draft of a feature-length script/equivalent format for immersive projects
  • Is not a standalone work of fiction in live action, immersive or animation
  • Is a feature film idea intended to be less than 70 minutes in length
  • Is intended primarily for broadcast television
  • Is a documentary, although they will accept applications for projects that are hybrid combinations of documentary and fiction or dramatized content
  • Focusses on another art form such as literature, dance on film, poetry on film, opera or artists’ moving image
  • Adapts an existing work (fiction or non-fiction) that was not written by you or your co-writer, apart from in exceptional cases involving archive or journalistic material as described above
  • Is a biopic (it is primarily based on the lives of one or more real individuals)

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible for this fund, you must:
  • be the writer of the project
  • be based in England (producers or co-writers on your project can be based anywhere in the UK)
  • be over 18 and not in full-time education at the time of applying (this also applies to any producers and co-writers involved in the project)
  • have a strong creative track record, that has gained industry recognition (e.g. festival selections, screenings, broadcasts, articles or reviews) this must be a produced work in television, documentary, theatre, immersive or a short film if you are already working in the screen industry. If you are not currently working in the industry, this can be student, grassroots or non-professional work.
  • be a new writer  i.e. not have received a commercial distribution deal in the last 5 years (either theatrically or through a major online platform) for your previous work. If you have distributed your work yourself, you can apply.
  • not have received a development or production award from the BFI Filmmaking Fund or BFI NETWORK Fund in the last two years.

For more information, visit BFI Network.