BFI Sets Shift To Investment Beyond Cinema & Digital-First Approach In New Ten-Year Strategy ‘Screen Culture 2033’

deadline.com:

After 13 months of extensive consultations with the UK film industry, government, and public, the British Film Institute has unveiled a new three-year funding plan alongside a ten-year strategy that will shape the organization’s future investments and priorities.Screen Culture 2033 was launched at a virtual event on Friday with BFI CEO Ben Roberts who said the initiative would transform how people engage with the BFI creating skills and jobs across the UK.

Crucially, the BFI is adopting a new three-year National Lottery Funding Plan that will start in April 2023 and see the organization invest £136 million into the business or £45 million annually.

This is a dip of around 10% from the last funding plan, BFI2022.Of these funds, £54 million will be available to filmmakers through the BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund, BFI Network, and The National Lottery Creative Challenge Fund, a new funding strand established to support what the BFI has described as “risk-taking creative storytelling.”Historically, BFI National Lottery funding has focused primarily on film.

But Screen Culture 2033 signals a shift with the body pledging to “monitor and assess” the role it can play in funding new media forms including television, video games, and interactive and immersive technologies.“Most of us experience or contribute to Screen Culture – through film, TV, online video, extended reality, and video games –  in our daily lives.