Sisters, co-produced by Ed Guiney and Lara Hickey, and Aoife Kelleher’s Justice for Magdalenes are two of the nine international co-productions that have been awarded in the latest funding round of the UK Global Screen Fund.
Financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the UK Global Screen Fund allocates over €1.3 million through the fund’s International Co-production strand. This strand gives UK producers the chance to partner with international co-productions and create new global projects. To date the strand has awarded almost €6 million to 33 co-productions
Justice for Magdalenes, the working title for Irish producer Rachel Lysaght and UK producer Farah Abushwesha’s co-production, is one of the nine projects awarded funding this round. The feature documentary will be directed by Aoife Kelleher (One Million Dubliners), and follows a group of women, supported by the activist organisation Justice for Magdalenes, who set out to hold the Irish government accountable for the abuses of the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Home institutions, and forced family separation, which then takes them all the way to the United Nations.
Also among the co-productions awarded funding is Sisters, a minority UK co-production with Ireland, Germany and Greece made under the European Convention. Ed Guiney and Lara Hickey of Irish Sackville Film and Television Productions are co-producing with Rachel Dargavel from UK production company Crybaby Films, along with German production arm of The Match Factory (Michael Weber) and Greek Akran Creative Company (Romanna Lobach). This feature is the directorial debut of French actor Ariane Labed (The Lobster), following two sisters born ten months apart and an encounter which forces shocking revelations about the girls’ past and future.
This latest round of awards will be the first time the fund has supported collaborations with India and Finland. The funding will also support co-productions from Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand. The projects of this round include seven feature films and two documentaries, as well as two TV projects, including one documentary and one animation.
The funding awards come in the form of non-recoupable grants which support UK independent companies as minority co-producers for feature films and as majority and minority co-producers for TV projects in animation and documentary genres.
“It is fantastic to see such a strong and diverse slate of co-production projects from companies across the UK, collaborating with a growing and exciting mix of international territories, many for the first time,” said Denitsa Yordanova, BFI Head of the UK Global Screen Fund. “The UK Global Screen Fund is proud to support the UK independent screen sector with ambitious plans for reaching new international audiences and this range of film, TV, documentary and animation projects has great potential to capitalise on and deepen international partnerships and achieve success in new global markets.”
The other projects included in this funding round are as follows:
- Barbie Uncovered (UK/New Zealand)
- Beast (UK/Denmark/Sweden)
- Chennai Story (UK/India)
- In the Black (UK/Canada)
- Mojo Swoptops (UK/Belgium)
- Our Island (UK/France/Belgium/Finland)
- The Return (UK/Italy/Greece/France)
