The BFI (British Film Institute) has announced 30 awards to the tune of £3.3 million through its UK Global Screen Fund, supporting seven new international co-productions with the UK as a minority partner and 23 UK screen content businesses to help their international activities. £1.3 million of that sum was handed out in the co-production strand, taking the form of a non-recoupable grant of up to £250,000, paid over three years.

Established in the aftermath of Brexit (see the news), the fund provides an incentive for international partners to collaborate with the UK’s independent screen sector and make use of the country’s film infrastructure. This latest round of funding provides an update on the production status of anticipated films from directors both established and emerging. Hungary’s László Nemes is one of the former, with his third feature, Orphan, set to be a co-production involving Hungary, France, Germany and the UK, staged by Pioneer Pictures, Agat Films, Pallas Film and Good Chaos. Maintaining the historical focus of the Academy Award-winning Son of Saul [+leggi anche:
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Q&A: László Nemes
intervista: László Rajk
scheda film] and its follow-up, Sunset [+leggi anche:
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intervista: László Nemes
scheda film], it will follow a young boy in Budapest in 1957, one year after the Hungarian Revolution, which saw a failed uprising against the USSR.

Jan Komasa, Academy Award-nominated for his 2019 film Corpus Christi [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bartosz Bielenia
intervista: Jan Komasa
scheda film], is preparing Good Boy, a UK-set project produced by Ewa Piaskowska and Jerzy Skolimowski’s Skopia Film, in collaboration with Jeremy Thomas’s Recorded Picture Company. Co-scripted by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid (feted for In Camera [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Naqqash Khalid
scheda film] at last year’s Karlovy Vary), the picture follows a football hooligan kidnapped by a middle-class family, who hope to reform him. Thomas hailed the fund’s support, explaining: “At Recorded Picture Company, we work a lot with international auteurs. Having a funder at home who endorses that is encouraging for independent producers.”

Hanna Bergholm has also received support for Nightborn, another natal horror picture following the success of Hatching [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Hanna Bergholm
scheda film]; Finland, Lithuania, France and the UK are the co-production territories. Itonje Søimer Guttormsen has been awarded for Butterfly, her follow-up to the Rotterdam-competing Gritt [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Itonje Søimer Guttormsen
scheda film]. In it, Renate Reinsve and Helena Bjørnebye play sisters who, following their mother’s death, reunite on the island of Gran Canaria, where they once enjoyed an unconventional upbringing.

The three other films awarded grants are A Prayer for the Dying by Dara Van Dusen (Sweden/Norway/UK), Birthday Party by Miguel Ángel Jiménez (Greece/Spain/Belgium/UK), and Lomu by Gavin Fitzgerald and Vea Mafile’o (UK/New Zealand).

All of the projects will be made under the European Convention of Cinematographic Co-production. The international co-production funding strand will re-open for applications on 7 February.