The 10 titles that were the biggest recipients of distribution funding for theatrical releases from the British Film Institute (BFI) in 2025 received a total of £520,276 from the organisation’s Audience Projects Fund.
As well as supporting individual theatrical releases, as below, the fund backs a range of audience-facing projects across standalone and multi-year awards, such as Queer East Festival 2025 and 2026 (£200,000); Sheffield DocFest (£180,000); Glasgow Film Festival (£115,000); Edinburgh International Film Festival (£113,000); and distributor T A P E Collective, which received £96,800 to support the release of four films: The Ballad Of Suzanne Cesaire, In the Nguyen Kitchen, Can I Get A Witness? and Animalia.
The fund has £15m from 2023-26. For the 2026-29 funding cycle, this allocation has increased to £19.7m.
1. Night Of The Zoopocalypse, Kazoo Films (£100,000)
Kazoo Films, the nascent distribution arm of The Amazing Maurice producers Cantilever Media, grossed £1.2m in the UK-Ireland after Night Of The Zoopocalypse’s October release. David Harbour and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee are among the voice cast of the film in which a meteor unleashes a virus that turns zoo animals into mutants. Directed by Canadian animators Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro, the film received its world premiere at Sitges in 2024.
2. Sister Midnight, Altitude Film Distribution (£78,000)
Karan Kandhari’s Mumbai-set Sister Midnight is a dark comedy that follows the journey of a small-town misfit in a newly arranged marriage. The Cannes 2024 world premiere grossed around £122,000 at the UK-Ireland box office after its release in March.
3. Memoir Of A Snail, Modern Films (£60,150)
Australian director Adam Elliot’s second feature-length animation won best film at the BFI London Film Festival 2024 after its world premiere at Annecy. It tells the story of a melancholic woman – voiced by Succession star Sarah Snook – who is a hoarder of snails, romance novels and guinea pigs. It grossed around £120,000 in UK-Ireland after its release in February.
4. Ernest Cole: Lost And Found, Dogwoof (£58,000)
Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Cannes documentary prize winner examines the life of exiled South African photographer Ernest Cole, who was one of the first to expose the horrors of South Africa’s apartheid to a world audience. It grossed around £36,000 in UK-Ireland following its release in March.
5. The Summer With Carmen, Peccadillo Pictures (£44,000)
Two friends on a gay nudist beach attempt to write a low-budget movie in this meta Greek-language comedy, which world premiered at Venice in 2023 and is directed by Athens-based Zacharías Mavroeidis. It opened to £15,285 when it was released in February.
6. Collateral Echoes, Recurring Dreams (£40,295)
London-based artist and filmmaker Baff Akoto’s immersive installation commemorates lives of Black and immigrant Britons disproportionately killed after police contact since 1969. It premiered at Sheffield DocFest 2025 and features spoken prose from actor Paapa Essiedu and poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah.
7. Palestine Comedy Club, Tough Crowd (£36,900)
Palestinian filmmaker Alaa Aaliabdallah’s SXSW London and Sheffield DocFest selection follows five Palestinian stand-up comedians who write and tour a stand-up comedy show. The UK producer, Charlotte Knowles’ Tough Crowd, is distributing directly in the UK-Ireland and is set to release on January 7.
8. Solo, Peccadillo Pictures (£35,000)
Sophie Dupuis’ Canadian romantic drama centres on an emerging drag queen in Montreal. It world premiered at Toronto in 2023 and opened to £6,265 in UK-Ireland in February.
9. Testimony, Rocliffe (£34,181)
Irish filmmaker Aoife Kelleher follows attempts to bring lasting justice to women who were victims of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. The documentary has grossed £10,900 since its release in November and is a partnership between Miracle, Underground and Rocliffe.
10. S/He is still Her/e - The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary, Doc’n Roll Films (£33,750)
This US documentary played at Tribeca and Sheffield DocFest, and spotlights Genesis P-Orridge, the Manchester-born radical performance artist and lead singer of band Throbbing Gristle. Directed by David Charles Rodrigues, it grossed around £25,000 in UK-Ireland after opening in June.
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