EXCLUSIVE: The BFI has renewed partnerships for the next three years with Into Film and the National Saturday Club to continue delivery of its education and skills development schemes for 5-18 year olds.
Into Film and the National Saturday Club previously administered the BFI’s three-year £14m strategy for young people from 2023-26, and will now receive an enhanced £14.6m for the coming three years.
UK film education charity Into Film will receive just shy of £13m over three years to work across three programmes: BFI National Lottery Teaching With Film, BFI National Lottery Young Creatives and BFI National Lottery Careers and Progression.
National Saturday Club has £1.7m for the same period to deliver the Young Creatives scheme through its Film & Screen Saturday Clubs and masterclasses. National Saturday Club offers 13-16-year-olds UK-wide the opportunity to study their choice of subjects at a local university, college or cultural institution.
Funding breakdown
The BFI National Lottery Teaching With Film programme has £5.2m to bring film and moving image into the classroom and aims to strengthen cultural literacy. For the 2026-29 phase, Into Film will continue to target underserved communities and special educational needs and disabilities settings, bringing topical subjects such as the impact of AI on film into its curriculum, with an aim to achieve 270,000 engagements and train up to 9,000 teachers.
Sixteen additional locations are being targeted, including Fife, Barrow-in-Furness, Sandwell, Newham, Penzance and Omagh.
For the BFI National Lottery Young Creatives programme, Into Film and National Saturday Club (awarded £1.5m and £1.7m respectively) will work to support the delivery of filmmaking clubs across a range of settings UK-wide, supporting young people aged 7-16 to develop transferable skills.
Into Film has been awarded £6.3m to deliver the BFI National Lottery Careers and Progression programme, creating a coherent pathway from learning with film, to making films, to exploring careers in the screen industries, which the BFI says is the single largest sector-specific careers fund in the creative industries, targeted at young people aged 11-18. The 2026-29 round aims for over 33,500 direct engagements, with 80% of targeted activity taking place in areas with the highest indicators of disadvantage or lowest engagement with existing careers provision.
“We now work with more than two-thirds of UK schools, helping young people engage with storytelling, media literacy and creative technology while opening up pathways into one of the UK’s most exciting and fast-growing industries,” said Fiona Evans, CEO of Into Film. “By working closely with schools, communities and industry partners across the country, we want every young person, no matter their background or where they live, to have the chance to build skills, tell their own stories and see new possibilities for their future.”
“At a time when equitable access to creative education and extracurricular learning opportunities is increasingly vital, this partnership plays an important role in ensuring that young people from all backgrounds and communities can engage critically and creatively with film and screen culture,” added Lucy Kennedy, CEO of National Saturday Club.
“Through our Young Creatives Programme and our Careers and Progression Programme, we want to empower every young person to learn that whatever their interests or current skillset, there could be a job in the screen industry to suit them, said Sara Whybrew, director of skills and workforce development at the BFI. “It’s also important that we don’t lose sight of the importance of young people engaging in filmmaking for joy.”
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