01/02/2012

Creative England has awarded 39 projects a total of £465,972 in its first round of Film Culture funding.

Major awards include £40,000 to Sheffield’s popular Doc/Fest; £26,799 to The Rural Media Company helping them to redress the lack of information and networking opportunities for rural filmmakers and companies; £25,000 to Brighton’s Cinecity for their year round programme of specialized film; £25,000 to the Bristol Encounters International Film Festival; £21,000 to the South West Film & Television Archive; £18,800 to the Cambridgeshire Film Consortium to support audience development for critical and cultural understanding of films; and £18,000 to the Media Archive for Central England.

Other awards include £15,000 to Arts Alive: Flicks in the Sticks, a network of 95 rural village venues across Shropshire, Herefordshire and neighbouring counties screening over 650 films across 2000 square miles; £15,000 to Blaize / Cine Yorkshire, a rural touring cinema project working in village halls and community venues across North Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire; £10,000 to Manchester’s Abandon Normal Devices Festival focused on new cinema, digital culture and new ways of experiencing film and media; and many other awards.

Creative England CEO Caroline Norbury said, “It is a great reflection of the vitality of film in England that we received so many strong applications to this first round of Lottery awards. While we had to make some tough decisions I am confident we are backing the right spread of projects across the country with these awards, which will benefit each of these organisations and the audiences they serve.”