Uk china film fund

EXCLUSIVE: The UK Asian Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and today, Deadline can share the official lineup for the jubilee edition, running at venues across the UK from May 4 — 14. The running theme for this year’s edition is ‘Celebrating Our Stories,’ which will see the festival screen a series of films that center on the British Asian experience. The festival will open with the UK Premiere of the Hindi-language pic Sanaa at BFI Southbank. The film follows the eponymous Sanaa, a 28-year-old financial advisor working in Mumbai, who discovers she is pregnant. Clear on her decision to terminate her pregnancy, the process of getting the abortion forces Sanaa to re-evaluate her life and if the choices she has been making have really been her own. Lead actor Radhika Madan ( Pataakha ) and director Sudhanshu Saria ( Loev ) will attend the screening. The festival’s closing gala takes place on May 13 at the Kiln Theatre in North West London with the … [Read more...] about UK Asian Film Festival Sets Programme For 25th Anniversary Edition

Michael Winterbottom has devoted much of his filmmaking career to revisiting real-life events through works blurring the boundaries between documentary and drama to various degrees. The filmmaker shed light on his approach in a recent Doha Film Institute (DFI) masterclass, going behind the scenes of Welcome To Sarajevo , 24 Hour Party People , In This World , The Road To Guantanamo , A Might Heart and Eleven Days In May . “It’s a continuum, even if you’re filming a fantasy film in a studio on a green screen there is an element of document to that. You’re recording that moment of the act of performance,” he said when quizzed on his attitude towards documentary versus fiction. “Equally, even in a documentary like Eleven Days … you’re trying to shape that story, so it a continuum,” he added, referring to the 2022 documentary commemorating 68 children killed in Israeli bombing raids over Gaza in May 2021. Winterbottom elaborated on this idea through his … [Read more...] about Michael Winterbottom Talks Blurring Of Lines Between Documentary & Fiction; Appeals For UK Film Funding Rethink – Qumra Masterclass

The new National Lottery Filmmaking Fund is the BFI ’s attempt at creating a clearer and more transparent funding mechanism with an emphasis on equity, diversity, and inclusion, Mia Bays , director of the fund, told the Deadline shortly before the launch of the new plan Tuesday morning. The fund, first announced late last year as part of the BFI’s 10-year strategic plan, will grant $44m (£36.6m) in cash awards over three years to support fiction feature films. The cash will be available through four separate funding strands focused on different parts of the filmmaking pyramid, from debut features and development to more experienced filmmakers. The fund will also hand out $21m (£17.4m) in cash awards to support documentaries, shorts, talent development, and immersive works. The total sum will be $66m (£54M) across three years. “The fund is moving from being a very wide brief into being very focused,” Bays told Deadline. “It’s very much evidence-informed. It’s informed … [Read more...] about BFI’s Mia Bays Talks New Filmmaking Fund, The End Of The Vision Awards & The Challenge Of Supporting UK Film With Less Money

EXCLUSIVE : Good Deed Entertainment has acquired North American and UK rights to the indie drama Midday Black Midnight Blue , starring 2x Emmy winner Merritt Wever ( Godless ), slating it for a day-and-date release in June. The first feature from writer-directors Samantha Soule and Daniel Talbott, also starring Chris Stack (AMC’s Interview with the Vampire ) and Soule ( Godless ), follows Ian (Stack) as he grapples with his shifting memories of Liv (Soule), a woman he once loved. For Ian, it’s a chance run-in with Liv’s sister (Wever) that sparks a journey in which he has a chance to reconnect to the light and fight his way back to life. The film, which world premiered at last year’s Seattle Film Festival, is produced by Soule, Talbott and Stack, as well as Lovell Holder and Addie Johnson Talbott. Exec producers are Timothy Farrell, Conner Marx and Will Pullen. GDE’s EVP of Acquisitions Erik Donley negotiated Midday Black ‘s deal for the company, with … [Read more...] about Merritt Wever-Led ‘Midday Black Midnight Blue’ Acquired By Good Deed; Coral Peña, Nicole Byer Board ‘Thelma’; More – Film Briefs

The British Film Institute ( BFI ) today announced that it will grant $44m (£36.6m) in cash awards over three years to support fiction feature films as part of its new National Lottery Filmmaking Fund. The cash will be available through four distinct funds: Discovery – The discovery fund will be dedicated to directorial debuts and aim to support six feature films per year, each budgeted below $4m (£3.5m). The first deadline for applications is April 24 for fully-developed projects seeking to shoot this year. Applications will reopen in July and November. Impact — The impact fund will be a rolling fund focused on projects from second-time filmmakers and beyond or debuts budgeted over £3.5m. The cash pot will aim to support five projects a year with an emphasis on scale and audience impact. Development — The development fund will cover costs at all stages of the development process. The fund will aim to support around 60-70 projects per year. Creative … [Read more...] about BFI Unveils New $66m National Lottery Filmmaking Fund

Saudi Cultural Development Fund has officially launched its Film Sector Financing Program , offering financial support to local and international film companies that want to get involved in the country’s burgeoning cinema industry. The initiative, with a portfolio of $233 million (879M Saudi Riyal), was first unveiled in early 2022 as part of the country’s $1.1 billion IGNITE Digital Content Program, then teased again during the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah in December. The program officially launched against the backdrop of the film-focused the Ignite the Scene event in Riyadh last week, organized by the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The CDF said in a release that the initiative is open to local and international companies and that its aim is to support the growth of a sustainable local film industry by empowering the private sector with financing packages that support local content and promote filmmaking. The … [Read more...] about Saudi Arabia Officially Launches $233M Film Sector Financing Program Aimed At Local & Int’l Companies

In another sign of the return to China for Marvel after a long drought, Disney /Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been set for a day-and-date release on May 5. The James Gunn -directed finale in the series is due to hit North American cinemas that same day while international rollout will begin on May 3. (Check out the new China poster below.) This marks the third Marvel title to secure a theatrical release in China following a three-and-a-half year period during which no movies featuring a Marvel character gained entry to the world’s second largest box office market. Last month , Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania became the first titles in since Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home in June 2019, and Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame in April that same year. Neither Wakanda Forever ($15.6M) nor Quantumania ($39M through last Sunday) spun Chinese turnstiles off their axes in February — … [Read more...] about China: ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3’ Secures Day-And-Date Release

“We all have to become a bit more Scandinavian,” Beta Film MD Moritz von Kruedener told a Series Mania audience this morning. Opening the Lille Dialogues section on the final day of the France confab, von Kruedener raised the requirement to be flexible and seek financing from more than one local network for projects, given that budgets have increased so steeply. He explained that Scandinavian and Eastern European territories have been doing this for decades. “Even if you’re only producing locally, national funding is not enough,” he added. “In Germany and other nations you now have to combine two local partners. In a way we all have to become a bit more Scandinavian.” Beta is distributing event series Estonia from several Nordic networks, which recently sold to Germany’s Seven.One Entertainment Group. The outfit has nurtured a reputation over the decades for acting as broker on pan-European projects – von Kruedener stressed its position as “partner” several … [Read more...] about “We All Have To Become A Bit More Scandinavian,” Declares Beta Film MD – Series Mania

Lamia Chraibi is one of Morocco’s best-known indie film producers whose credits include Mica , about a boy from the slums who is discovered to have a talent for tennis, and Sitges prize-winning horror Achoura as well as co-producing 2016 Cannes Critics’ Week winner Las Mimosas . The Franco-Moroccan producer, who works under the banner of La Prod in Casablanca and Moons a Deal in Paris, is now attempting to break into drama series. It is a transition that has been tried and tested by indie film producers in Europe and North America but is less common in the Middle East and North Africa . Chraibi is giving it a shot in the belief that North African drama could eventually enjoy the same popularity as the non-English language shows out of Scandinavia, Turkey or South Korea. “I’m convinced that they could seduce audiences in the same way,” she says. “Language and origin of a series is no longer an issue, if anything, there’s an appetite to see stories set in … [Read more...] about Doha Film Institute Pioneers Series Lab As MENA Indie Film Producers Push Into Drama In Untapped Region

Detective John Luther’s movie debut helped lock up millions of UK viewers for Netflix , but the feature fell well short of other film offerings on Netflix. Luther: The Fallen Sun was watched by 3M people on TV sets, according to Barb, the official audience research group. It has also occupied first place in Netflix’s top-10 movies in the UK for two weeks. Luther was only sixth in the list of Netflix’s most-watched movies since Barb began reporting viewing figures for streamers in November 2021, according to a Deadline analysis. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery spent two weeks in Barb’s list of the top 50 shows and films in the UK, amassing a total of 18.5M viewers in that time. Don’t Look Up also spent two weeks in Barb’s list, meaning it was watched by 15M people. The Adam Project (11.1M), The Gray Man (6.9M), and Enola Holmes 2 (4.6M) also performed well. The figures only include people watching on television sets, meaning that viewing on mobile … [Read more...] about ‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’ Arrests 3M UK Viewers, But Struggles To Match Other Netflix Movies