Projects from County Lines filmmaker Henry Blake and Almost Heaven director Carol Salter are among the first four to receive support from the Uncertain Kingdom Development Fund.
The £60,000 fund is a relaunch of The Uncertain Kingdom short film initiative. The aim is to support commercial projects that unpack UK culture and identity and have at least 70-minute running times, with features considered at script or treatment stage.
Unlike the earlier anthology project, the Uncertain Kingdom Development Fund will not fund production and the projects are not intended to be released together.
Writer-director Henry Blake receives development funding for his second feature, following on from County Lines. The Golden Radiance Of A Beetle is co-written by Xiao Tang and produced by Denzil Monk of Bosena and Victoria Bavister of Two Birds Entertainment. It’s set in 1919, and follows a Chinese dock worker and an English woman who fall in love, but societal judgement transforms her into a beetle.
Salter, who won the best documentary Bifa for Almost Heaven and took part in the inaugural 2019 short film initiative, returns to The Uncertain Kingdom with Just In Time. The project is described as “a lyrical documentary exploring how people work in opposition to or in harmony with time, and how ultimately it controls and defines us. And how saving time today might mean losing it tomorrow.”
Writer Rex Obano and producer Jenny Monks, of Pencil Trick Productions, have funding for their feature Madam Tinubu. It’s set in 2052 when the world as we know it has ended, and the heat of Britain can only be survived by migrating Africans. The story focuses on Madam Tinubu, who must grapple with the kidnap of her lover.
Fulfilment is a project from writer Ted Wilkes and producer Manon Ardisson of Ardimages UK. Abbie is an aspiring novelist in her 30s. She is forced to work in a warehouse operated by the world’s biggest e-commerce brand to make ends meet where, at night, terrifying creatures take over.
The fund continues to collaborate with Picturehouse Entertainment, who will once again be closely involved in the selection of projects. The fund is led by executive producer and director John Jencks. The Uncertain Kingdom producers Isabel Freer and Georgia Goggin are executives of the fund. Clare Binns and Paul Ridd lead from Picturehouse Entertainment.
The Uncertain Kingdom fund will open again for submissions on May 23 and close on June 20 2022, and is open to filmmakers who are residents of the UK, but need not be British, and should have previously made a feature.
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