2026 awardees
Bosena Ltd – Field Work
Field Work will support ten early career producers from rural and coastal places outside of major screen industry centres, who have a narrative feature film project in active development.
Manchester Animation Festival – Animation Featured
Animation Featured is a high-impact development accelerator designed to bridge the gap between creative vision and marketplace readiness for six UK independent animated feature films.
No Password Required
No Password Required is a UK-wide creative and business development programme for 10 early-career Global Majority-led production companies, designed to move feature narrative projects from advanced development into production-ready, financeable packages, delivered in collaboration with Film Distributors Association, Film Export UK, My Smash Media, Lee & Thompson, All3Media Group and Fruit Tree media.
Screen Argyll – Sea Change Animated Women
Sea Change Animated Women will advance six animated feature film projects, currently at early-to-mid development stage. Projects must be led by women and marginalised gendered animators transitioning from short-form into feature storytelling. Applications open in July 2026.
Sheffield DocFest – Queer Realities Director’s Lab
Designed to empower 20 early-career, queer filmmakers over two editions (2027 and 2028), Queer Realities Director’s Lab aims to foster creative freedom and encourage risk-taking within cross-genre documentary filmmaking. The Lab will offer a dedicated, intense development pathway for directors eager to experiment with form and structure to add depth and complexity to their queer nonfiction projects. Applications open in July 2026.
2025 awardees
MilkTea Films – Great Migrations
Great Migrations addressed the historical and severe exclusion of East and/or Southeast Asian (ESEA) talent in the UK screen sector by creating a bespoke, genre-focused development lab for ESEA writers, writer-directors and producers.
Belfast XR Festival – Amplfy:XR Lab
Amplify:XR Lab provided strategic support to 10 producers at the early development stage of XR projects via an incubation programme. The programme supported the development of original IP in narrative XR by new and emerging producers working alongside their project directors and other key Heads of Department.
FACT Liverpool – Digital Crip Camp
Digital Crip Camp supported 10 projects that are led by, or predominantly led by, producers who are D/deaf, have a disability or are neurodivergent. Producers explored accessibility approaches in the development of immersive narrative projects.
104 Films CIC – D-Horror
D Horror addressed the need for innovative, genre-driven projects by supporting disabled filmmakers at an early career stage to move into long-form feature development.
Screen Yorkshire – Local Landscapes, Global Horizons
Local Landscapes, Global Horizons is a producer-focused creative development and market strategy programme designed to help UK producers, and their core creative teams transform regionally rooted stories into globally resonant feature films.
Dreamcoat Films – Matchmaker Lab
The Matchmakers Lab supported 10 emerging, UK-based producers working on feature film projects with creative or production links to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. It equipped participants with the skills, knowledge, and networks to engage in successful co-productions with partners from the Global South.
Doc Society – Future Proof
Future Proof is a programme for the development of new innovative non-fiction cinema and immersive work by emerging- to mid-career creators and filmmakers. Participants explore how documentary makers adapt and learn from the climate of changing technologies, AI, big data, virtual and augmented environments that fundamentally challenge ideas and experience of truth.
Impact Together Limited – The Business of Impact Lab
The Business of Impact Lab is a targeted programme for 10 experienced UK-based scripted producers to develop and pitch commercially and impact-viable business cases. Equipping teams with strategic tools applicable across their wider slate and preparing to pitch to stakeholders across philanthropy, distribution, and social change sectors.
Mission Accomplished – First Features Producer Lab
The First Feature Producer Lab is a development lab designed to support early-career producers in the critical final stages of developing their first narrative feature film. Co-designed and delivered by Mission Accomplished and The Fold, the Lab addresses a clear industry need: enabling producers with promising projects to navigate the difficult period between late-stage development and greenlight to help more projects convert from development to production.
Sona Films – Gatecrashers
Gatecrashers was a new writing lab aimed at supporting genre feature projects from writers from working class or low socio-economic backgrounds. Through dedicated development support, 10 projects were taken from outline to treatment stage and writers received much needed access and resources to take time to focus on their projects via two residencies.
Glasgow Film Theatre – Funny Features 2
Building on the success of Year 1, the second iteration of Funny Features supported the development of 10 comedy feature projects from underrepresented early and emerging writers and producers. Helping participants strengthen their scripts, build finance strategies, broaden their networks and improve pitching skills to unlock further development and investment. In collaboration with Curzon.
Independent Cinema Office – Get It Seen
Get It Seen provided core training to 16 emerging and established producers, with an intensive programme providing a thorough understanding of the business of film distribution and exhibition in the UK as well as an overview of international markets and exhibition models in key territories.
2024 awardees
104 Projects – No Funny Business
This comedy feature film development programme supported 10 projects with disabled writers, producers and directors looking to challenge and explore new and more interesting ways of depicting disability on cinema screens and which make audiences think differently about disability and work towards a more inclusive society.
Crossover Labs – Immersive Fictions Lab
Crossover Labs accelerated writing and early development of screen-based immersive projects, addressing the central question: ‘Why isn’t XR funny?’. It was open to first and second-time immersive writers, directors and producers from across the UK with projects that utilise screen-based XR technologies including virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.
Film Constellation – UK Next Wave Genre Lab
The UK Next Wave Genre Lab was an initiative led by three leading industry organisations with complementary experience and expertise: Film Constellation, Maskoon Fantastic Lab, and Tatino Films. The lab provided intensive workshops and individual tailor-made residencies for filmmakers in different countries, offering culturally immersive environments with opportunities to forge international partnerships.
The Glasgow Film Theatre – Funny Features
Funny Features, an innovative talent lab from Glasgow Film Festival, aimed to invigorate the industry by addressing the lack of initiatives for producers looking to finance comedy genre projects. Successful producers, writers, and writer/directors took part in workshops and mentoring sessions covering a range of topics from script consultation, pitching, and film finance packaging.
Screen South – Develop-CreateXR
This cinematic narrative writing and world-building development programme for immersive XR supported UK writers to develop innovative projects by embracing experimental storytelling and ‘audience centred’ narrative design. Participants were encouraged to challenge audience expectations of narrative across a range of genres, themes and subjects that are not ordinarily embraced on for cinematic VR. In collaboration with BRiGHTBLACK.
Sheffield DocFest – Development Lab for LGBTQIA+ documentary
This Sheffield DocFest lab supported 10 early stage filmmakers wishing to experiment with form whilst exploring the LGBTQIA+ experience. It enabled creative freedom and risk-taking, cross-genres, and equipped talent with the networks, resources and toolkit for an independent film career.
Story Compound – The Residency
The Residency was a talent and IP accelerator that identified outstanding screenwriting talent with unique, global perspectives. It fast-tracked the development of 10 action and thriller films by female and non-binary writers from the Global Majority for local and international markets.
Trans+ On Screen, The DarkRoom – a Film Development Lab
The DarkRoom supported Trans+ and Queer Global Majority writers who may not have had the opportunity to develop feature film genre projects to work in a supported environment, showcasing quality work with the ability to travel and find audiences globally.