A Prayer For The Dying from UK-France outfit The Bureau and Good Boy, produced by Jeremy Thomas’s Recorded Picture Company, are among the seven international co-productions to receive backing from the UK Global Screen Fund (UKGSF).
In addition, 23 UK screen content businesses have been awarded funds to boost their international activities.
UKGSF is financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and administered by the British Film Institute (BFI). The latest batch of awards sees over £1.3m being allocated through the international co-production strand and over £2m being allocated through the international business development strand.
A Prayer For The Dying is a minority UK co-production with Norway and Sweden. The UK producer is Tristan Goligher and Bertrand Faivre’s The Bureau, which will co-produce with Norwegian Eye Eye Pictures and Swedish Garagefilm International.
It is written and directed by US filmmaker Dara Van Dusen, and based on Stewart O’Nan’s novel of the same name, set in a small Wisconsin town still suffering from the repercussions of the recent Civil War.
Jan Komasa’s Good Boy, about a football hooligan kidnapped by a middle-class family seemingly intent on turning him around has also received funding. It is a minority UK co-production with Poland, produced by the Oscar-winning UK producer of The Last Emperor Jeremy Thomas with Ewa Piaskowska and Jerzy Skolimowski of Poland’s Skopia Film. Komasa’s credits include Corpus Christi. The writers are Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid.
Emily Morgan’s Quiddity Films has received funding for Butterfly, a minority UK co-production with Norway, Sweden and Germany. Quiddity Films is working with majority co-producers Mer Film in Norway, Zentropa in Sweden, and Nordfilm in Germany. Written and directed by Oslo-based Itonje Søimer Guttormsen the feature film tells the story of two sisters, living very separate lives and far-removed from their alternative upbringing in Gran Canaria. They reunite on the island following their mother’s mysterious death.
Mike Goodridge’s Good Chaos is the minority UK co-producer of Laszlo Nemes’ Orphan, co-producing with Hungary’s Pioneer Pictures, France’s Agat Films and Germany’s Pallas Film. Nemes writes and directs his third feature film which follows a young boy in Budapest in 1957, 12 years after the end of the war and one year after the Hungarian Uprising.
Further films to be supported include Birthday Party, a minority UK co-production with Greece, Spain and Belgium. The UK producer is Raucous Pictures which i working with the majority Greek producers Heretic, alongside Spanish Fasten Films and Belgian Lemming Film. It is directed by Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez and based on a novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. It is about a Greek tycoon celebrating his daughter’s 25th birthday on his private island, where he will face an unpredictable chain of events.
All of the aforementioned films are being made under the European Convention of Cinematographic Co-production.
Company awards
Companies to receive UKGSF international business development awards include Big Little Fish Television, which aims to hire an executive to further its US market expansion; David Barron’s DB Films, which plans to build a slate of elevated genre films; and Greenacre Films, to put towards the hire of an international intellectual property consultant.
Financial support for international business development will provide the 23 companies from all over the UK with funding via one of two tracks: ‘film transformation’, for internationally-focused transformational business strategies related to independent UK films, with strategies spanning three to five years, or ‘general’, for business strategies to create, acquire and/or exploit intellectual property (IP) across film, TV, animation, documentary and interactive narrative video games, with strategies spanning three years
The funding, awarded in the form of non-recoupable grants and ranging between £50,000 and £150,000 in total over a three-year period, is focused on helping companies achieve new international business partnerships, enhance their profile and reach in the global marketplace, and increase revenue generation through export and international expansion.
UKGSF’s international business development strand’s reopens for applications as follows: round one on February 7 and round two on September 30 for international co-production and April 4 for international business development.
All other UKGSF funds are assessed on a rolling basis throughout the year,
UKGSF international co-production awards
A Prayer For The Dying (Swe-Nor-UK)
Dir. Dara Van Dusen
Prods. Eye Eye Pictures, Garagefilm International, The Bureau
Birthday Party (Greece-Sp-Belg-UK)
Dir. Miguel Angel Jimenez
Prods. Heretic, Fasten Films, Lemming Film, Raucous Pictures
Butterfly (Nor-Swe-Ger-UK)
Dir. Itonje Søimer Guttormsen
Prods. Mer Film, Zentropa, Nordfilm, Quiddity Film
Good Boy (Pol-UK)
Dir. Jan Komasa
Prods. Skopia Film, Recorded Picture Company
Lomu (UK-NZ)
Dirs. Gavin FitzGerald, Vea Mafile’o
Prods. Sylver Entertainment, Tahi Productions
Nightborn (Fin-Lithuania-Fr)
Dir. Hanna Bergholm
Prods. Komeetta, Filmai, Getaway Films
Orphan (Hun-Fr-Ger-UK)
Dir. Laszlo Nemes
Prods. Pioneer Pictures, Agat Films, Pallas Film
UK Global Screen Fund International Business Development awards
- Alleycats (Icebox Films trading as Alleycats)
- Big Little Fish Television
- Dare Pictures
- DB Films
- FunDay Studios
- Greenacre Films
- Ground Shatter
- Hoho Rights
- JOI Productions
- Luti Media (Portobello Post Ltd trading as Luti Media)
- Mallinson Television Productions
- Miracle Tea Studios
- Moonraker VFX
- Nosebleed Interactive
- Paper Owl Films
- Particle Productions
- Ping Online Communications
- Pirate Productions
- Proper Content
- RapidEyeMovers
- Severn Screen
- Taunt
- Tin Roof Media
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