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By Mona Tabbara 2022-05-12T09:31:00+01:00

Downton Abbey A New Era

Films shooting in the UK in the past year have contributed a record high of £1.4m to the ScreenSkills Film Skills Fund.

In total, 66 productions paid £1.4m for the year concluding at the end of March.

Productions are encouraged to contribute 0.5% of UK production spend into the fund. The cap was £61,000 for 2021/22.

The previous record was £1.08m in 2019/20, with a slump to £474,000 in 2020/21 when production was halted by pandemic lockdowns.

Contributors included Wonka (Heyday Films, Warner Bros), Downton Abbey: A New Era (Universal Pictures, Carnival Films), Dungeons & Dragons (Paramount Pictures), drag queen documentary Maisie (Proper Charlie Productions),Persuasion (Netflix, Media Rights Capital), Steve Coogan’s The Lost King (Margaritz Productions, Baby Cow Productions, Pathe, BBC Film, Ingenious Media), George Clooney’s Boys In The Boat (Tempesta Films, Lantern Entertainment, MGM), and the murder mystery See How They Run (Searchlight Pictures, Disney).

Short film True Colours, made in Northern Ireland, was the smallest contributor at £12.50.

The Animation Skills Fund, which was re-launched in 2019 after a period of inactivity, also recorded a best-ever total of £187,030 contributions from productions. The cap for animation contributions was £44,500.

Councils and working groups for both funds are now meeting to confirm training priorities to meet demand and address skills needs across the sector. The skills funds are invested alongside National Lottery funds from the BFI under its Future Film Skills strategy, which ends this year.

Among training supported by Film Skills Fund contributions last year were the transfer programme for people experienced in working with Black hair and make-up for people of colour, hiring and managing a team, deaf awareness and virtual production training.

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