Documentaries Barbie Uncovered, Justice For Magdalenes and Beast are among the nine titles to receive funding from the British Film Institute (BFI) through the UK Global Screen Fund, via the fund’s international co-production strand.
It is financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). This round, the awards allocate over £1.2m to support UK producers to work as partners on international co-productions. To date the strand has now awarded over £5m to 33 co-productions.
The awards, in the form of non-recoupable grants, support UK independent companies as minority co-producers for feature films of all genres, and as majority and minority co-producers for TV projects in animation and documentary genres.
In this round, the funding supports partnerships with Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand.
TV documentary Barbie Uncovered is a majority UK co-production with New Zeland. UK producers are Scotland-based Ross Wilson from RW Productions and Alan Clements from Two Media Rivers who will co-produce with New Zealand’s Daniel Story and Cass Avery from Augusto.
Directed by Kanaval filmmaker Eddie Hutton-Mills, Barbie Uncovered focuses on the dramatic and dark story behind the creation of the famous doll.
Justice For Magdalenes is an unofficial minority UK co-production with Ireland, from UK producer Farah Abushwesha of Rocliffe, who co-produces with Rachel Lysaght of Ireland’s Underground Films. The feature documentary is directed by Aoife Kelleher and tells the story of the extraordinary women, supported by the activist organisation Justice for Magdalenes, whose fight to hold the Irish government accountable for the abuses of the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Home institutions and forced family separation, takes them to the United Nations.
Max Kestner’s documentary Beast, on a major Danish scandal, the killing of a healthy giraffe in a zoo, is a minority UK co-production with Denmark and Sweden made under the European Convention, with Hopscotch Films’ John Archer the UK producer on the project, in co-production with with Denmark’s Bullitt Film and Sweden’s Plattform Produktion.
Ariane Labed’s directorial debut Sisters, and The Return, Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of Homer’s classic The Odyssey, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, have also been awarded.
UK GSF latest international co-production awards
Barbie Uncovered (UK-NZ) – £125,000.00, TV documentary
Dir. Eddie Hutton-Mills
Prods. Ross Wilson, RW Productions; Alan Clements, Two Media Rivers
Beast (UK-Den-Swe) – £45,000
Dir. Max Kestner
Prods. John Archer, Hospcotch Films; Vibeke Vogel, Danish Bullitt Film; Alex Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck, Swedish Plattform Produktion
Chennai Story (UK-India) – £200,000
Dir. Philip John
Prods. ie ie Productions; Ripple World; Sunitha Tati, Guru Films.
In The Black (UK-Can) – £180,000
Dir. Frances Anne Solomon
Prods. Daniel Florêncio and Nefeli Zygopoulou, I Made It Films; Nicole Brooks, Canadian CaribbeanTales Media Group
Justice For Magdalenes (working title) (UK-Ire) – £66,000
Dir. Aoife Kelleher
Prods. Farah Abushwesha, Rocliffe; Rachel Lysaght, Underground Films
Mojo Swoptops (UK-Belg) – £170,000
Dir. Dominic Minns
Prods. Blue Zoo Animation Studio; Belgian Hotel Hungaria
Our Island (UK-Fr-Belg-Fin) – £80,000
Dir. Vladimir de Fontenay
Prods. Mike Goodrige, Good Chaos; Carole Scotta, French Haut et Court; Jacques-Henri Bronckart, Belgian Versus Production; Jenni Jauri, Finnish Silmu Films
Sisters (UK-Ire-Ger-Gre) – £150,000
Dir. Ariane Labed
Prods. Rachel Dargavel, Crybaby Films; Ed Guiney and Lara Hickey, Sackville Film and Television Productions; Michael Weber, The Match Factory; Romanna Lobach, Greek Akran Creative Company
The Return (UK-It-Gre-Fr) – £200,000
Dir. Uberto Pasolini
Prods. James Clayton and Uberto Pasolini, Red Wave Filmsco; Roberto Sessa, Picomedia; Konstantinos Kontovrakis and Giorgos Karnavas, Heretic; Stephane Moatti, Kabo Films; Romain Le Grand, Marco Pacchioni and Vivien Aslanian, Marvelous Productions
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