The British Film Institute (BFI)’s National Lottery funding will increase by 10% from 2026-29, with £150m available across the coming three years.
The BFI will invest approximately £50m per year of National Lottery ‘good cause’ funding, up from £136.3m available across the previous three-year period equating to £45.4m per year.
Funding set aside for filmmakers and talent development, which is administered by the BFI Filmmaking Fund and Doc Society, has seen a 13% increase, from £54m for 2023-26, to £61m for the coming three years.
This equates to £20.3m per year – although still behind the £25m per year the then-BFI Film Fund was allotted in 2022/23.
Funding for audience development has received a notable 21% increase to £33.5m across the coming three years, compared to £27.6m in 2023-26.
Funding will be spread across six strands, continuing the 10-year National Lottery Strategy 2023-2033, outlined by the Screen Culture 2033 plan. Some strands have been slightly reworked to better represent how the teams that manage the funds are now structured. As well as filmmaking/talent development and audiences, there is education and heritage, skills and workforce development, international, insight and industry.
As previously reported, from April 2026, the UK government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will increase its direct funding of inward investment activity and production services as well as the UK’s presence at major markets and festivals to £75m across three years via the Screen Growth Package in the government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan. This includes a scaled up £18m per year for UK Global Screen Fund which previously received £7m a year.
The direct support has enabled the BFI to redistribute National Lottery funding into other areas led by filmmaking and audiences.
To reflect this, there is now a reduced £1.4m available across three years for international activities, down from £3.2m under the 2023-4 plan, and £5.25m across three years for insight and industry, down from £7.3m under the previously-named innovation and industry services section.
Scroll down for the full breakdown
BFI chief executive Ben Roberts told Screen the recent interventions of increased lottery funding, scaled-up support from the government as part of the Screen Growth Package, and the positive impact of the Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC) should combine to give the UK industry the “confidence and consistency” it needs.
“Times are still clearly challenging for everyone working in the sector,” he added.
The BFI deemed audience support to be an area that would particularly benefit from enhanced support, said Roberts. “With audience funds, there are relatively few other pots of public funding and subsidy, compared to film production where we’ve had the increase in tax credit plus the UK Global Screen Fund increase,” he noted.
“A very in-demand fund”
How the 13% increase for filmmakers and talent development will be administered is yet to be decided. “There is a bit more work to be done to determine exactly how we will allocate that uplift across development, [BFI] Network, production but it’s a very in-demand fund,” said Roberts. ”Any uplift will be welcomed. We have taken into account the IFTC is now active and seems to be proving really valuable.”
Ambitions for the next round of funding include the BFI Skills Fund broadening its scope to support skills across a wider sector footprint including exhibition, distribution and games; the BFI Audience Projects Fund increasing opportunities for sector-facing work as well as greater flexibility for distribution projects; and increased funding for shorts through BFI Network, with the talent development programme also piloting Microshorts funding for filmmakers at the very start of their careers.
Key measures introduced under the 2023-2026 plan included the creation of BFI Skills Clusters, the Open Cinemas fund for year-round free screenings of independent films and key recommendations for helping industry navigate AI.
Cinema infrastructure
A key area in which Roberts said he wanted to to shore up more support is the infrastucture of cinemas, which sits outside that sits outside of what is possible with National Lottery funding.
”We don’t have capital funding for projects, lottery is more about time-bound projects,” he explained. “We are continuing to make the case to DCMS of the need for investment in the cultural infrastructure of cinemas. We know that independent cinemas really need that support.”
UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy echoed this need to bolster support for cinemas when speaking in front of the culture, media and sport (CMS) committee last week.
Roberts continued, ”We are also continuing to support the Film Distributors’ Association on the idea of a P&A [print and advertising] tax relief as well. They sit outside of the scope of National Lottery funding.”
He ruled out the possibility, as raised during the CMS committee’s film and high-end TV inquiry, that lottery funding could be used to support high-end TV in the near future.
”When we did our deep consultation at the start of the 10-year [National Lottery funding] strategy process, there was a strong note back to us as we talked about ’wider screen’ to please not erode the precious pot of money available for film,” said Roberts. ”Right now we are exploring a number of different measures that might support high-end TV drama in the UK. Lottery is not currently one of them.”
The BFI receives 2.7% of available National Lottery funding. The terms for how the BFI awards National Lottery ‘good cause’ funding are set out in policy directions established by the DCMS and enshrined in legislation.
National Lottery funding is based on projections by operator Allwyn of the ‘good cause’ funding that will be available as a result of National Lottery ticket sales.
Full BFI National Lottery funding 2026-2029
• £61m for filmmaking and talent development (£20.3m per year)
• £35.55m for skills and workforce development (£11.9m per year)
• £33.5m for audiences (£11.2m per year)
• £13.3m for education and heritage (£4.4m per year)
• £5.25m for insight and industry (£1.75m per year)
• £1.4m for international (£470,000 per year)