BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund opens for applications with increased £19.7 million budget over three years
The funding supports exhibition and distribution of ambitious, audience-facing, film and immersive projects.
Applications are now open for the BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund, which will award £19.7m of National Lottery funding over three years to support the exhibition and distribution of ambitious, audience-facing, film and immersive projects.
The BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund is an open fund supporting distributors, exhibitors and festivals to bring independent films and immersive activity to audiences across the UK in a dynamic and original way. The activity supported by the fund will demonstrate cultural ambition and encourage audiences to take risks in the viewing choices they make.
The fund will support organisations with multi-year and short-term projects as well as smaller pilot projects from organisations new to the fund:
Awards of up to £20,000 are available to support pilot projects that take creative, operational and economic risks in developing audiences from specific underrepresented backgrounds and have the potential to grow and reach national audiences
Awards of up to £500,000 are available for nationally significant audience-facing projects that relate to the exhibition and UK wide reach of independent UK and international film and immersive activities
For the first time, immersive projects can include physical production costs of up to £150,000 (within the maximum award amount of £500,000) in addition to touring or exhibition costs. (Any physical production costs will come from the BFI Filmmaking Fund, but can now be applied for as part of one BFI Audience Projects Fund application). Applications including production costs must come from UK culturally significant organisations and be for newly commissioned immersive projects that are intended for UK-wide exhibition. (A UK culturally significant organisation is defined as a public or private organisation, or not-for-profit organisation, that can demonstrate that it successfully promotes and develops public-facing cultural activity that reaches significant UK wide audiences.) This change is intended to streamline the application process for large-scale immersive projects, encouraging the creation of new immersive work commissioned with a UK-wide audience in mind.
The fund is also open to sector-facing projects that support the industry to adapt, innovate and develop ambition and resilience.
Projects previously supported by the Fund in 2023 to 2026 include: Queer East festival; a UK tour of immersive VR experience In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats; UK distributor Dogwoof’s theatrical campaign for Copa 71 (2024); Bradford: A City of Film, a year-long ambitious film screenings and events programme as part of Bradford City of Culture 2025; and multi-year audience development awards for independent cinema venues including Queen’s Film Theatre Belfast and HOME Manchester.
The £19.7 million for BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund is part of a total £33.5 million allocated for Audiences as part of the National Lottery Funding Plan 2026-2029, which also includes £10.8 million for BFI National Lottery Film Audience Network to boost public and community access to screen culture across the nations and regions, and £3 million for BFI National Lottery Open Cinemas to build on the pilot Open Cinemas fund which successfully attracted new audiences to independent cinemas across the UK through free regular screenings.