How the BFI awarded its £129 million over four years

Apr 13, 2015

Over the past few weeks I have been looking at UK-based public funding for films. It appears to be a hot topic for UK filmmakers as I've had all manner of emails and social media messages asking for more details. So I decided to dig deeper into the largest public body dedicated to supporting UK film - the British Film Institute (BFI).

Over the past four years, the BFI has awarded almost £129 million of National Lottery money to films, filmmakers and film related organisations and events. Fortunately for us, the BFI publishes details of its awards and so I crunched the data.

In summary...

Between April 2011 and March 2015, the BFI awarded £128,831,288
The money was dispersed via 1,178 awards across 927 unique projects
Around 75% of those projects were individual films
The rest were events, organisations and activities promoting British films in the UK and abroad
The films with the largest total awards were Under the Skin (£2,170,410), Great Expectations (£2,030,000), Invisible Woman (£1,610,559) and ’71 (£1,556,736)
The UK Presence at Cannes Film Festival 2014-16 costs £1,170,000
The 2014 UK delegation to Shanghai and Beijing cost £95,000

Films funded by the BFI

The awards are made for all manner of projects and organisations so it's hard to say exactly how many were directly for feature film projects.

However, judging by the names of the awards, I have calculated that 884 of the 1,178 awards made between April 2011 and March 2015 were directly linked to films (feature length and short films). This represents 75% of the awards made by the BFI during that period. The rest were awarded to organisations running schemes, festivals and educational events.

Below is a list of the 30 feature films with the highest combined total of awards made between April 2011 and March 2015. It's possible that funding was given to films on this list before April 2011 but that money would not appear here. This combines all types of funding a film could receive including development, production, distribution, exhibition and export worldwide.

[table id=65 /]

If you would like to research a film for yourself then visit bfi.org.uk/film-industry/funding-awards and search under 'Project title'. Bear in mind that it's not unusual for a film to change name between development and release, as happened with "Ginger & Rosa" which was called "Bomb" when it received BFI funding awards.

Apply. Fund. Repeat.

A number of films received multiple funding at different stages of production. For example, the film "The Falling" received six funding awards between March 2012 and April 2015, totalling £983,250. These were...

28 Mar 2012 - £45,750 paid to Cannon and Morley Productions for Development via the Film Fund
19 Jun 2013 - £21,500 paid to Cannon and Morley Productions for Development via the Film Fund
11 Sep 2013 - £35,000 paid to Cannon and Morley Productions for Development via the Film Fund
19 Sep 2013 - £750,000 paid to Cannon and Morley Productions for Production via the Film Fund
08 Oct 2014 - £40,000 paid to Malady Films for Production via the Film Fund
25 Feb 2015 - £91,000 paid to Metrodome Distribution for "Breakout" via the Distribution Fund

Much of the money the BFI put into the development of films is repaid upon principal photography and recycled into further awards.

Cannes dos

Every year the UK pavilion at the Cannes film festival is packed full of British filmmakers and free shortbread. The tent forms the hub of British events in Cannes, which includes talks, networking events, adverts for shooting in Britain, private meetings between filmmakers and sunbathers.

The three awards made since April 2011 related to the UK presence at the Cannes Film Festival are...

18 Jan 2012 - £350,000 for Cannes 2012 paid to Premier Public Relations via the Transition Fund
06 Feb 2013 - £189,115 for Cannes 2013 paid to Premier Public Relations via the International Fund
12 March 2014 - £1,170,000 for Cannes 2014-16 paid to "Various" via the International Fund

This means that this year's British Pavilion is costing the BFI around £390,000.

Spending on other industry related market events included...

£10,000 at the Hong Kong Filmart in 2013
£36,726 at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013
£20,000 at Dinard British Film Festival in 2014
£95,000 for the UK delegation to Shanghai and Beijing in 2014
£487,500 for "UK Industry Presence At International Festivals & Markets 2015 - 17"

By Fund

Below is a list of the BFI awards made between April 2011 and March 2015, split by the fund they were attached to.

[table id=63 /]

By Type

Below is a list of the BFI awards made between April 2011 and March 2015, split by the type of award.

[table id=64 /]

Epilogue

Going through all this data has brought home to me the breadth and depth of the work the BFI funds. Many times, I spotted a film I'd seen or an event I had attended without ever realising that the BFI had a hand in it.

In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that I have once had direct support from the BFI: once in a meeting with BFI staff I had a cup of tea purchased through their staff discount. I have done my best to not let this colour my judgment too much.