The BFI will invest $7 million in the Doc Society
The BFI has today announced that it will invest $7 million (£6M) of National Lottery ‘good cause’ funding over three years in the doc society.
The cash prize is part of the BFI’s rollout for its new National Lottery strategy and will go towards supporting the documentary-focused non-profit in distributing its funding for features, shorts, and talent development.
BFI Doc Society funding will also be open for applications from April-June 2023 Recruitment will begin for a new executive who will lead the fund, working closely with Doc Society directors Sandra Whipham and Shanida Scotland.
The BFI said the Doc Society will “develop and develop” the funding and support it offers to filmmakers from April 2023 to meet the BFI’s new National Lottery strategic priorities. These structural changes will include a stronger focus on regional and national opportunities through the BFI Doc Society Fund to support features and shorts.
Founded in 2005 and initially supported by UK broadcaster Channel 4, Doc Society was selected for the BFI cash award following an open application process. The non-profit organization has been a BFI partner since 2017. Nothing matches, rebellion (dirs. Elena Sánchez Bellot, Maia Kenworthy), and the BAFTA-winning short black police.
“Independent UK documentary filmmaking is vital to our cultural landscape,” said Mia Bess, director of the BFI Film Fund.
“To maximize the impact of our funding we are working with a partner to bring genre-specific knowledge, expertise and an international network to help support, grow and nurture this sector. Our new strategy sets out refocused priorities for this area of work, and in Doc Society, we have a great partner who will not only work to deliver them but whose passion, genuine care and tireless belief in the power of documentary and our talent. Filmmakers across the UK will benefit from this significant and robust sector.”
Doc Society co-director Sandra Whipham added: “We’re over the moon to be given another three years of funding to build on the work we’ve done over the past five years. In times of rapid change and challenge, we’re creating the best independent creative non-fiction in the UK and internationally and Ready to lean in and collaborate with the documentary film sector to ensure it gets seen.”
! function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {
if (f.fbq) return;
n = f.fbq = function() {
n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)
}
;
if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;
n.push = n;
n.loaded = !0;
n.version = ‘2.0’;
n.queue = [];
t = b.createElement(e);
t.async = !0;
t.src = v;
s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)
}(window, document, ‘script’, ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘422369225140645’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
