MEDIA granted UK companies and films over €14m in 2011

MEDIA Desk UK has just published MEDIA in the UK 2011, a report detailing all funding awards made by MEDIA to UK companies and films in 2011. Over 70 companies in the UK received MEDIA support, sharing over €7.4m (£5.9m).

A further €6.8m (£5.4m) was invested in over 50 UK films to support their distribution across the rest of Europe. Phyllida Lloyd’s Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady received over €1.5m to help it travel across Europe, whilst Tom Hooper’s Academy Award®-winning The King’s Speech and Mike Leigh’s Another Year received €500,086 and €367,025 respectively. A range of less commercial titles from newer UK talent also had their audiences boosted in European countries outside the UK: Steve McQueen’s Shame, Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur and Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights all benefitted from MEDIA distribution funding.

European distributors brought a range of European titles to cinemas with MEDIA funding that totalled €783,500, including the Dardenne brothers’ Le gamin au vélo (The Kid with a Bike), Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre and Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope).

Film and new media production companies received over €2 million for the development of their fiction, documentary, animation and interactive projects. Funded companies include Attractive Entertainment, Lupus Films, Sigma Films and Sixteen Films.

Three film schools in the UK benefited from support for joint international training initiatives in 2011: Scotland's Edinburgh Napier University, the London Film School and the University of Wales, Newport. In addition to this, the Continuous Training scheme awarded grants to six UK-based training courses, including Inside Pictures 2012, Marketing Movies Online Labs and Independent Cinema Office’s Developing Your Film Festival.

MEDIA also provides financial support to activities that promote audiovisual projects' and professionals' access to industry markets. In 2011 it continued its support for Film London's Production Finance Market, Sheffield Doc/Fest's MeetMarket and Power to the Pixel's Pixel Market. Leeds International Film Festival also maintained its MEDIA funding in 2011.

MEDIA Desk UK was delighted to see that Bristol Encounters International Film Festival and the BRITDOC Foundation’s Good Pitch Europe won MEDIA support for the first time, and the UK’s membership of European cinemas network Europa Cinemas increased from 45 to 50.

MEDIA in the UK 2011 can be read and downloaded from the left-hand panel of this page.