EXCLUSIVE: UK producer Emily Morgan and Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz are among the mentors for the first edition of the Matchmakers Global South Lab.
The lab is for UK-based emerging producers working on full-length fiction projects in the UK seeking co-production with countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
It is being delivered by Joseph A. Adesunloye’s UK company DreamCoat Films and Luiza Paiva’s UK-Brazil company Mairare, supported by the BFI Creative Challenge Fund.
Ten projects will be selected to take part.
As well as Quiddity Films’ Morgan, whose credits include Dreamers and The Settlers, and Firebrand filmmaker Aïnouz, mentorship will come from Moroccan-French Across The Sea director Saïd Hamich and Nigerian filmmaker Akin Omotoso, director of Disney+ sports drama Rise.
The programme is UK-wide and will be held both in person and virtually from January to April 2026, starting in Leeds. The cohort of producers will attend the European Film Market at the Berlinale to meet international co-producers and launch their projects into the global marketplace, supported through a partnership between British Council and Brazil’s philanthropic organisation Projeto Paradiso.
Additional partners include the UK’s National Film and Television School, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture’s audiovisual secretary Joelma Gonzaga, Screen Nigeria and the Brazilian embassy in London. The lab is part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture 2025-26.
DreamCoat Films is a UK company headed up by Adesunloye, with a focus on people of colour-led stories. Credits include Locarno premiere Vanilla and BFI London Film Festival premiere White Colour Black, both directed by Adesunloye.
Mairare, founded by Luiza Paiva, is a UK and Brazil- based production company dedicated to creating films that tackle social change issues, with a development slate that includes Beyond The Fight (working title), a documentary about a Brazilian congresswoman. Paiva was the assistant director on Firebrand.
“The UK is increasingly collaborating with African, Caribbean and Latin American territories, from Morocco to Nigeria to Brazil, yet many UK-based emerging producers lack direct routes into these markets. This programme aims to provide answers to that gap,” said Adesunloye.
“The aim is to open doors and create opportunities for UK producers to build capacity, partnerships and presence in the Global South, and vice versa,” added Paiva. “Filmmakers in these regions increasingly look outward for collaboration and rely heavily on global networks for co-production support, which is exactly what Matchmakers aims to provide.”
The £2.7m (2023-26) BFI Creative Challenge Fund was set up to decentralise development support for UK filmmakers. It put out a call in April for development labs that focus on early career producers. “By opening up vital global connections, and combining these with sustained mentorship and structured support, we are confident UK producers participating will gain transformative benefits that extend far beyond this [Global South Lab] programme,” noted Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund.
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