The UK’s Liverpool Film Office has secured top-up funding for its Liverpool City Region (LCR) Production Fund from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Strategic Investment Fund.
An additional £1m will be invested over the space of one year, to help target feature films, TV drama, animation and comedy series with investments of between £100,000 and £500,000.
The investment will help the LCR Production Fund to target a further three-four projects over the next 12 months, with priority given to productions able to create opportunities for locally-based talent, production facilities, locations and other services.
Since its launch in 2019, the fund has invested over £1.7m in six projects including Jimmy McGovern’s BBC drama Time and Channel 4’s Help, both starring Stephen Graham, as well as The Responder with Martin Freeman and The Ipcress File with Joe Cole, both of which are expected to be broadcast early next year.
Time was one of the BBC’s highest performing new dramas of 2021 with 11.6 million viewers over 28 days, and Help hit 1.1 million streams after just 4 days – the biggest ever launch of a new drama on All 4.
The six productions combined are so far estimated to have delivered over £12m of direct inward investment into the local economy.
Christopher Moll will continue as advistor and executive producer for the fund, generating deal flow and overseeing its investments.
Studio space is also experiencing a boom in Liverpool. Work has now completed on The Depot, Liverpool’s new purpose-built film and TV shoot space, featuring two 20,000 sq ft units, while £17m has been invested in developing film studios at Littlewoods.
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