A sense of momentum is building in the UK documentary sector following the welcome news of a 20% increase in Doc Society funding for 2026-29, as well as enhanced co-production support for UK documentaries from the UK Global Screen Fund, with a new majority co-production award for documentary.
There is also hope that a change in guard at BBC’s Storyville will bring fresh opportunities for homegrown producers, after a period of international focus for the strand. (Nevine Mabro took on the newly created role of head of Storyville in January, and Emma Hindley departed as lead commissioner.)
It has been a challenging few years for UK independent documentary filmmakers. The bottom has fallen out of the theatrical market, and TV and streaming deals are scant. Producers are aware, despite positive breakthroughs this year, the sector is on shaky ground.
“It’s amazing the BFI has done the uplift for Doc Society,” says Grasp The Nettle producer Rebecca Wolff. “I’d love it if BBC Film or Film4 would get more involved in the theatrical on docs. It would be great to see them coming in as partners in the same way they do unscripted for theatrical documentaries.”
“Risk-averse financiers and broadcasters and a relentless focus on true crime and celebrity” are the big challenges, according to Natasha Dack Ojumu of Tigerlily Productions. “But we know that there are audiences out there who want to see different kinds of films.”
Screen turns the spotlight on 11 documentary-focused UK-based production companies working on innovative projects and expanding their business models.
Doc Hearts
Need to know: Andy Mundy-Castle’s company turns 10 this year, with a focus on feature and TV documentaries that entertain while challenging perspectives, as well as children’s content. Doc Hearts has also recently launched a physical studio space, Imperial Warf Studio, located in Chelsea, west London.
Slate: A Misan Harriman series is in the works, following SXSW London world premiere Misan Harriman: Shoot The People. The company is piecing together financing for its first narrative feature, a love story set during the Notting Hill Carnival, also being produced by Fiona Lamptey, Sheila Nortley and Aletha Shepherd, with Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith on board as writers. The film aims to shoot this year, partially during Notting Hill Carnival.
Further credits include White Nanny Black Child and White Man Walking.
Key strategy: “This year, what I’ve identified is a bigger, more salient approach to getting financing is finding individuals with vested interest in particular areas that can be another revenue stream for the company,” says Mundy-Castle. “I’m working on a series in the Virgin Islands with journalist Afua Hirsch, with money from a tourism board and a local college, talking about moving away from the vestiges of the British Empire and what that looks like. We’re working with great talent, in a unique way of financing… It doesn’t immediately have a broadcast home, but it does help keep the lights on.”
Dorothy Street Pictures
Need to know: The London and New York-based company was founded in 2018 by Julia Nottingham and has grown to a team of 20 in the UK, with three in the US. Sister upped its investment to take a majority stake in April 2025.
Slate: Dorothy Street was at Sundance this year with Courtney Love doc Antiheroine. The company has built a name working on female-focused docs with streamers that aim to show new sides of well-known figures. They include Netflix series Victoria Beckham and Pamela: A Love Story, as well as Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story on Disney+. The company also produced the narrative feature Edge Of Summer.
Key strategy: “Our reaction at Dorothy Street to the changing market is to try to diversify,” explains Nottingham. “We’ve really built a name for ourselves in the premium documentary space. We’re now developing dating shows, we’re in production on our first reality show with Disney+, and we’ve got our first entertainment format development with a terrestrial channel.”
Glimmer Films
Need to know: Filmmaker Jeanie Finlay founded Nottingham-based Glimmer Films in 2008. They have recently expanded with support from the UK Global Screen Fund to set up Glimmerama, a creative distribution strand to release projects produced by Glimmer and from producers of marginalised backgrounds, with Suzanne Alizart as head of business affairs and creative producer.
Slate: Glimmer has produced Finlay’s projects All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea, Your Fat Friend, Seahorse and Orion: The Man Who Would Be King. The company has received a grant from the US’ Chicken & Egg Films for Finlay’s under wraps Incredible, Unstoppable Untitled Jeanie Finlay Project.
Key strategy: “We’re very interested in [the answers to] ’how do you strengthen a theatrical experience? What are the opportunities for showing films in non-traditional venues, for showing work online in a new way? How do you make it as accessible?’” says Finlay, who has been working with online independent film distribution platforms Jolt and Kinema, and is interested in exploring YouTube as a distribution tool.
“The thing that is really important to me is finding models that enable filmmakers to carry on making work, and so they are paid for the work that they do.”
Grain Media
Need to know: Former professional snowboarder Orlando von Einsiedel founded Grain Media in 2006, creating projects he describes as “purpose-led”. In 2024, the company shifted its focus away from straight commissions from streamers as a reaction to difficult market conditions. A 12-strong team focuses more on private equity and grants, as well as experimenting with crowdfunding for certain projects.
Slate: In the works is Liam Saint-Pierre’s The Last Picture Shop, about a Cypriot Cockney’s attempts to save his beloved film shop from closure, for which the company is exploring a crowdfunding model. Further credits include The Cycle Of Love, also directed by von Einsiedel, which premiered at Telluride 2025, The Walk and Netflix’s Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy.
Key strategy: After a tough 2024 for commissions, von Einsiedel’s company has put greater emphasis on its own development slate. “We had a development hub called Grace Labs that focused on the climate and biodiversity crisis. We significantly expanded that, and almost all development runs through that hub now,” he says.
Grasp The Nettle Films
Need to know: Rebecca Wolff and writer-director Dean Puckett founded the Cornwall and London-based company in 2015, specialising in documentary and genre narrative films, with key credits to date including Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane’s Grand Theft Hamlet, Orban Wallace’s Our Land and Ed Sayers’ Super Nature.
Slate: The company has just got funding from the US’ Catapult Film Fund for Grylls and Crane’s next project in early development, which explores human interaction with digital worlds; Hong Kong Mix Tape director’s San San F. Young, The Other Preppers, collaborating with a young group of people of colour in Birmingham about their anxieties and worries of the future is in the works; and Paul Sng’s Artist Mother Seer is in development.
On the scripted side, Grasp The Nettle is working on a vampire movie about coastal poverty in the south west of England, helmed by Puckett.
Key strategy: “I’ve found opportunities in looking towards the US and funding there,” says Wolff. “You’ve got fiscal sponsorship, which is a really great way for both foundations and individuals to donate to films and get a benefit for them. We just don’t really have that structure here. There are philanthropic individuals and funds that I think could have an appetite for supporting films, but there’s just not that easy mechanism.”
Hopscotch Films
Need to know: Clara Glynn founded Hopscotch Films in 1999, with former chief executive of Scottish Screen John Archer joining in 2001 to help grow the company. It now has a Glasgow-based team of six, with an emphasis on Scottish stories. “We work on the edge,” says Archer. “It’s like we’re ploughing the edge of a field, but there are lots of interesting wild flowers there.”
Slate: Hopscotch is working on Bel, about late Kenya-UK singer Beldina Odenyo Onassis, which is partly funded by the National Theatre of Scotland. Further credits include Psalms Of The People, The Golden Spurtle and My Old School. The company is a regular collaborator with Mark Cousins, working on several of Cousins’ The Story Of Film long-form projects.
Key strategy: “We did a documentary [2024’s Janey] with a comedian, Janey Godley, which I ended up directing,” says Archer. “We played that in about 12 cinemas with her, and afterwards she did 40 minutes of chat and stand-up, effectively. The box office for that film was over £100,000. We put it on quite simply with Cosmic Cat in Scotland, who are great distributors. When you bring something extra, I think [theatrical] works.”
Snowstorm Productions
Need to know: Kat Mansoor, producer of Andrea Arnold’s Cow, founded Snowstorm in 2022 with literary agent and producer Neil Blair of The Blair Partnership. Mansoor has a head start on IP that comes out of the agency for screen adaptation. The company now has a team of four and is looking to hire an exec to focus on TV commissions. Snowstorm maintains a streamlined and focused slate, but with ambition and cinematic vision for each of the projects.
Slate: Lorna Tucker’s classical music doc Yuja is almost finished, a UK Global Screen Fund-backed co-production with Canada, shot by celebrated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey. Father Father with Fremantle has also almost wrapped, about a Muslim-Jewish gay couple from Tel Aviv and their dreams of having a family in impossible circumstances. Snowstorm is shooting a project in Iran and is in development on docu-drama The Third Reich Of Dreams, about Jewish-German journalist Charlotte Beradt working in 1930s Berlin. The company is also about to do its first fiction project.
Recent releases include Myrid Carten’s Bafta-nominated and Bifa-winning A Want In Her, Molly Vs The Machines and Björk’s Apple TV concert film, Cornucopia.
Key strategy: “I really am trying to flip the way that I’m making the films, because I don’t trust that you will be able to sell your film at the end of it in the way that we used to five, six, seven years ago,” says Mansoor.
“The journey for how I’m collecting money has changed quite dramatically. I’m trying to get money from broadcasters or streamers way earlier in the process, and if there are soft money opportunities, I get as far as I can without having to take it out… Even [US]philanthropists now are scared of putting their names to certain types of films, because it has become riskier in terms of the content of those films and the political landscape, which is trickier to navigate at the moment.”
Sonja Henrici Creates
Need to know: Sonja Henrici, the former co-director of the Scottish Documentary Institute, founded the company in Edinburgh in 2021. She works with a part-time junior producer and a regular team of freelancers. She says she “focuses on stories that try to also make the world a better place” and regularly works with international partners in Scandinavia, France, the US and her country of origin, Germany. She is also expanding into fiction.
Slate: Henrici is working on Finlay Pretsell’s Cyclovia about Colombia’s passion for cycling, a coproduction with partners in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Colombia, plus a doc about a love story between a French physicist and American jazz musician.
On the fiction side, a romantic comedy based in Scotland with a mythical twist is in the works. Further credits include Pretsell’s Berlinale 2026 title, Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon, Sundance 2026 selection Birds Of War, Tracing Light, Merkel and Time Trial.
Key strategy: “I’ve always been interested in fiction,” says Henrici. “I’ve always written myself. To make it work in documentary, you give everything to it. It’s hard to do both, but realistically, financially, it might be a way to survive. It sounds dramatic, but I feel [scripted] is closer to my way of working than TV. To make factual TV feels much further away for me than to do drama fiction.”
Tara Films
Need to know: Northern Irish filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson and Brighton-based Eleanor Emptage founded Tara Films in 2018 to produce Ferguson’s feature directorial debut Nothing Compares about Sinead O’Conner. They say they are open to working with other directors, and are drawn to intimate but political projects, always targeting cinema.
Slate: Sinéad O’Shea’s Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story with Ireland’s SOS was the company’s second feature and is the most successful Irish doc of all time at the Irish box office. Matrescence is in development, a co-production with Scottish company barry crerar, exploring the overlooked biological and psychological transformation of becoming a mother, to be directed by Ferguson. They recently pitched the project to potential international partners at CPH: DOX.
Also in development is a feature with Misfits and Carla Holdforth, and a project about a photographer who found fame aged in her 90s, plus the company’s first narrative feature project, having dipped a toe in with Ferguson’s short Nostalgie.
Key strategy: “We’re not being very prescriptive about how it comes out, whether it’s a doc or it’s a drama, as long as the story is something that we really passionately believe in, and we’ll always have the political within it somewhere,” says Ferguson. “We want to make intersectional work with brilliant filmmakers. We’re very aware of the old guard still being in control of most of the industry, and we hope that we’re going to breathe some fresh life in.”
Tigerlily Productions
Need to know: Tigerlily Productions was founded 25 years ago by Natasha Dack Ojumu and Nikki Parrott, with Dack based in London, and Parrott relocating to Glasgow in 2019 to open up sister company Tiger Lily Two. The core team remains Dack and Parrott, with a focus on female-driven stories.
Slate: In the works is Mid Wif, directed by Mia Harvey, about a group of Black midwives in Georgia, US, where it is illegal to practice as a midwife outside of a hospital setting; Frightened Rabbit, a doc about the cult Scottish band; and Beauty, directed by and focusing on 1990s model Cecilia Chancellor. Tigerlily is also working with Jenny Ash, Pinny Grylls and Havana Marking.
Key recent credits include BFI London Film Festival 2023 prize winner Blue Bag Life, Is There Anybody Out There?, White Nanny Black Child (with Doc Hearts), Pauline Black: A 2 Tone Story, Eno, Spacewoman and Blue Has No Borders.
Key strategy: “You don’t have to go with a formal distributor, people are realising,” says Parrott, with non-traditional distribution models helping connect films with very targeted audiences. Tigerlily was a co-producer on the generative music doc Eno, released without a formal distributor and grossing nearly $1m globally, and will be directly releasing Spacewoman in the US. Meanwhile, Doc’n Roll Film Festival handled the distribution for Pauline Black: A 2 Tone Story. Jonny Tull’s consultancy Tull Stories has also been a key partner for the company, on the likes of Still Pushing Pineapples.
Violet Films
Need to know: Joanna Natasegara’s company focuses on social justice stories, with three permanent members of staff. Los Angeles-based studio MFF & CO has a stake in the company.
Slate: Natasegara’s directorial debut, Wu Tang-Clan doc The Disciple, world premiered at Sundance 2026. She is also directing a Gisèle Pelicot documentary for HBO Documentary Films. In the works is a scripted adaptation of 2014 nature doc Virunga for Netflix, written by Barry Jenkins with Leonardo DiCaprio also producing. Further credits include The Edge Of Democracy, series The Heart Of Invictus and We Dare To Dream. Natasegara executive produced Doc Hearts’ Misan Harriman: Shoot The People.
Key strategy: “We work a lot with Bird Street Productions [Los Angeles-based company run by James Costa and Trevor Burgess],” says Natasegara. “They really are everybody’s favourites. They’re really in a lot of projects, very smart financiers and producers. We love Harriet Guggenheim and her company Placeholder [a fund supporting socially engaged and cinematic documentaries] in the UK. Granting organisations like Chicken & Egg and Sundance are invaluable for filmmakers.”
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