EXCLUSIVE: Republic of Story and The British Blacklist’s UK access-to-market programme for Black and global majority producers, No Password Required, is returning for a second edition, now with backing from the BFI Creative Challenge Fund.
Ten UK-based companies led by Black and global majority producers, each with a narrative fiction feature at script stage, will be supported by industry experts to help package their script into a market-ready proposition. Fiona Lamptey’s Fruit Tree Media, film and TV matchmaking platform My Smash Media and media law firm Lee & Thompson will support the packaging process, ahead of a mini-market in partnership with the Film Distributors’ Association and Film Export UK.
The programme is once again being run by Scotland-based Republic of Story producer and London Film School course leader Victoria Thomas and The British Blacklist CEO Akua Gyamfi.
The second edition will run from September to November. Applications are now open, with a deadline of August 24. Participating production companies and their writers will also receive participation stipends.
Producers who took part in the first edition included Sara Bonakdar of Fifth Mirror Pictures, producer of Venice Critics’ Week 2026 selection Our Share Of Sand, and producer of Netflix’s Supacell, and Sheila Nortley of the Osun Group. Altitude, Studiocanal and HanWay were among the 12 companies to take part in the inaugural London market last year.
“Independent producers are central to turning ideas into films, but building a market-ready package requires specialist expertise, strategic input and dedicated time, all of which require investment,” said Thomas. “For many independent producers, particularly those running small production companies, finding the resources to make that investment while simultaneously earning a living can be challenging. This year’s programme has been designed to remove that particular barrier to access.”
“This year we’re taking everything we learned and going further,” added Gyamfi, “with more practical support, more one-to-one mentoring and more opportunities for Black and Global Majority producers to build relationships, develop their projects and better understand how to navigate the international marketplace.”
“As a producer and a buyer, I’ve seen too many strong projects fail not on the page but in the room because no one has stress-tested them against what buyers, financiers and distributors actually demand before they walk in,” noted Lamptey. “That’s what this programme is built to fix.”
“We are delighted to award BFI National Lottery Creative Challenge Fund funding to the second edition of No Password Required,” said BFI Filmmaking Fund director Mia Bayes, ”enabling the team to expand to a three-month development programme model centring projects and early-career producers from Global Majority-led production companies.”
As well as delivering the initiative, No Password Required maps Black and global majority-owned production companies in Europe, using data and insights from the mapping to build strategic interventions.
The BFI Challenge Fund supports organisations across the UK to deliver development programmes, with £3m in National Lottery funding from 2026-29.
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