The UK Global Screen Fund [UKGSF] has opened “massive” post-Brexit opportunities for the UK creative sector, according to Scotland-based animation producer Ken Anderson.
“The UKGSF is about our outward-looking perspective on the business – this is not about the UK,” said Anderson, speaking on a panel at the Screen Summit ‘The Future of UK Film’ yesterday (Tuesday, September 24) titled ‘How the UK Global Screen Fund can help facilitate international collaborations’.
“The opportunity is massive. That’s what we’re having to address as a nation post-Brexit – we have to think differently,” continued the producer, who co-founded Wild Child Animation. Anderson stepped down from the company earlier this month, to head up brand rights and production company TG Entertainment.
“We have to be an export economy, we have to be growing our businesses,” continued Anderson. “The only way we’re going to do that successfully is not the finite market that is the UK, but the global market.”
Wild Child received a UKGSF international business development award in 2023 – the largest of four given to animation companies in that funding round. The company’s UK-Italian TV animation project Piripenguins also received an international co-production award in August 2024.
Cassandra Sigsgaard, founder and producer at Jeva Films, said the fund has changed her whole way of thinking about making and financing films. “You suddenly realise how many opportunities are out there,” said Sigsgaard, “not just financial opportunities but creative collaborations.”
Earlier at the Screen Summit, a panel of independent UK producers faced up to the lack of money available in the UK currently. “Generally, we’re going to have to look outside these shores,” responded Sigsgaard. “That is not a negative – that’s a positive.”
Sigsgaard produced Alice Troughton’s 2023 Tribeca Film Festival selection The Lesson, starring Richard E. Grant, Julie Delpy and Daryl McCormack. The project received UKGSF backing from the international co-production strand, without which it wouldn’t have been able to broaden its funding base, said Sigsgaard.
“Had we not had the UKGSF, we wouldn’t have got any money out of Germany,” said the producer, who collaborated with Germany’s Egoli Tossell Pictures as well as France’s Constellation Productions, the UK’s Poison Chef and Bleecker Street Media in the US. “It’s a UK writer-director, a Danish producer with a UK passport and a French producer. Had we come to the journey without any support from our home territory, it wasn’t going to happen. Also in Camille [Gatin, fellow producer on the film] and I doing an international co-production – having that support made that a possibility.”
Go big or go home
Luti Fagbenle’s Luti Media received an international business development award in January this year, to be used for the hire of a global executive producer and head of production to help expand into Africa. Speaking on the panel, Fagbenle said applying for the grant helped focus the aims of his business.
“You’re making a film, you’re focused on the art – a business plan can feel like a distraction,” said Fagbenle. “But now it’s setting us on a trajectory that we’re much happier with. It gave us a sense of structure – seizing the opportunity that was lying there.”
Having produced Bafta-nominated short Mixtape and collaborated with music stars including Beyonce, Drake and Ed Sheeran, Fagbenle’s credits include as being an executive producer on Global series Robyn Hood and Channel 4 comedy Maxxx. He encouraged potential UKGSF applicants to apply for the maximum possible amount.
“Go big or go home!” said the producer. “I applied for £200,000. We didn’t get the [full] £200,000, but we got a very decent amount of money that I’ve never been given before to develop my business. It’s frickin’ awesome!”
“The important note here is that this is about finding a business opportunity,” said Sarah Mosses, whose Together Films received an international business development award when setting up the company’s new international sales arm, which has since acquired titles include Naqqash Khalid’s In Camera. “It was very important to articulate what the different revenue targets and international reach were from that [to the Fund].”
“Be prepared to articulate the business case and ideation to achieve international sales, to increase our revenue – specifically for social justice projects. What would having the provision to do this mean to the industry and ourselves?” added Mosses. “The UKGSF went towards hiring Jess Reilly as Together’s international sales & acquisitions manager for unscripted, and to strengthening Together’s presence at major international markets.”
The Screen Summit took place on Tuesday, September 24. Further coverage will be on screendaily.com this week.
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