Travel Grant Fund

A new-look Travel Grant Fund, offering grants to filmmakers and XR creatives to support travel to selected international festivals and showcase events, labs, and co-production forums.

Our Travel Grant Fund is supported by BFI National Lottery funding in partnership with BFI NETWORK and the BFI International Fund.

If you are a filmmaker or an XR creative, it is designed to enable you to represent your work abroad, develop new contacts and networks, and to reach new audiences. It is particularly created to increase the exposure of new and emerging UK films, XR projects and talent on an international stage.

We have separated the fund into five strands, accessed via two simple application processes:

Where can I go to?

This depends on which strand you are applying to. There are two Key Lists of eligible events which we review throughout the year. We've tried to make sure that the major moments in Film and XR are covered, alongside some more specialist events offering a platform for a diversity of voices.

Access and support

We are committed to making our funding accessible to all. We can help if you need support to make an application, and if you have specific access needs for your event visit.

For example you can ask for:

• our funding guidelines in other formats, like large print or audio
• support to understand these guidelines
• support to complete an application form
• funds to facilitate travel with a BSL interpreter or access worker

You can find an audio version of our guidelines and key information under each fund.

Please talk to us about what additional help may be available by emailing Films@britishcouncil.org

Sustainability

We know that while travel obviously contributes to the climate emergency, some face-to-face experience is incredibly valuable, especially for people at the start of their creative journey.

Witnessing an international festival audience watching your film or walking through your VR project, or workshopping with a future collaborator at labs and co-pro forums first hand, is an essential part of the creative process.

Accepting that, we're keen to keep sustainability in mind and have worked with Julie’s Bicycle to produce this Greener Travel Grants Guide to help filmmakers plan for the impact of their travel to festivals, labs and co-production forums.

Travel Grant recipients are encouraged to travel to European events by train and there is additional funding available to help with this.

Our partners

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