National Lottery Film Festival and Screening Programme Fund

The National Lottery Film Festival and Screening Programme Fund aims to support organisations who are looking to produce film festivals and screening programmes in Scotland for a public audience.

Activities supported by the fund should increase the reach, impact and diversity of film screenings and events for communities throughout Scotland and meet Screen Scotland’s Audience Development priorities.

Although the focus of this fund is on in-person events, we recognise that some activity may also take place on digital platforms when this is the best way to reach specific under-represented audiences.

What’s new?

In June 2023, we revised and relaunched the fund for 2023/24 with the following changes:

• Only festivals and screening programmes taking place before 31 August 2024 are eligible to apply. However, please note that there is the opportunity to apply for 2-year funding if you meet the criteria.
• We’ve changed the application dates and processing times and there are now specific deadlines for applying for activity which starts in September, October, and November 2023.
• The fund will remain open until the closing date of 11 January 2024, or until the fund’s budget is allocated (whichever is sooner).
• Applicants must demonstrate plans to secure at least 30% of their financing through other sources of public or private funding, in kind support, sponsorship and/or box office sales. Festivals over 3 years old are expected to demonstrate increased levels of co-funding.
• We are continuing to pilot the BFI Diversity Standards – Screen Scotland and all applicants to this fund need to evidence they have made an application to this prior to applying to us.

Full details can be found in our guidance document which is available to download below.

What is the budget for this fund?

The annual budget for this fund is £600,000 and this is supported through the National Lottery.

We expecting to make individual awards in the region of £10,000 to £70,000 per year. If your project budget is likely to be significantly outside this range, please contact Screen Scotland to discuss your application.

If you are looking for less than £10,000, please consider the funding opportunities offered by Film Hub Scotland.

Who can apply?

Only applicants who are looking to deliver festivals and screening programmes taking place before 31 August 2024, are eligible to apply.

This fund is open to new and existing organisations based in Scotland and producing film festivals, screening programmes and/or exhibition activity for audiences in Scotland.

All in-person screenings must be presented to audiences in Scotland.

New festivals or exhibitors, and organisation who aren’t currently film exhibition organisations are encouraged to discuss their plans with us in advance of an application being made. Please contact a member of the Audience Development team by emailing enquiries@creativescotland.com.

For more information, visit Screen Scotland