Northern Film and Media to become private company

Northern Film and Media (NFM) is to give up its status as a UK regional screen agency in favour of a new public-private business model.

The Newcastle-based agency wil become a freestranding private limited company and will sit outside of Creative England, which is due to be operational by October. It will be looking to expand it is portfolio of commercial investments and establish new partnerships with public and private bodies.

The new model is a response to reduced creative industry subsidy caused by the demise of regional funders One North East and the UK Film Council. The agency had its budget cut by 40% last year, making 50% of its staff redundant.

NFM wil continue to support North East creative industries through events, market access and services to incoming production.

Since its launch in 2002, NFM has generated over $114m (£70m) of investment into the North East creative industries.

In 2009, it established the North East Creative Content Fund. The $3.9m (£2.4m) co-investment fund with Northstar Ventures has invested in projects including One Night In Turin and United, which recently screened on BBC2.

Tom Harvey, CEO, Northern Film & Media: “I firmly believe that it is both necessary and desirable to break free of the traditional public sector business support model and become more self-sufficient. We are also very much looking forward to developing new partnerships with organisations such as Creative England, BFI and LEPs as the new structure becomes clearer.”