13/10/2003

The Children’s Film & Television Foundation (CFTF), the UK Film Council and the BBC have teamed up to create a new £900,000 fund to support the development of both live action and animated films aimed at children and family audiences.

There’s a £300,000 yearly budget available for the next three years, and independent production companies and individual producers will be able to develop new ideas for the big screen under the supervision of Grainne Marmion, the scheme’s Development Executive.
During the launch of the initiative last Saturday Anna Home, the Chief Executive of the 50-year old CFTF said: “this new fund will re-establish the CFTF as a focal point of family friendly films and enable it to provide the expertise to develop talent in this specialised genre”. Jenny Borgars from the Film Council added that “big successes such as Chicken Run and Harry Potter have shown that there is an audience for distinctively British, family friendly films, and this initiative will help to meet this demand”.
Present at the launch, the UK Films Minister, Estelle Morris also said: “when I was a teacher I saw first hand how film can enchant children. But UK filmmakers rarely target young audiences. So it’s important that we support the creation of films young people want to see, introducing them to the magic of film from an early age”.