Exciting New Partnership Set To Increase UK / Irish Documentary Co-Production Opportunities
Building on previous successful collaborations including ‘Knuckle' and ‘Horses', the BBC ‘s Storyville strand and Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board (IFB) have announced an exciting new creative partnership for the production of documentaries, co-produced between Ireland and the UK.
The partnership will see up to five documentaries co-produced in the next twelve months with finance from both parties. The IFB will be a minority financier on several UK-led documentaries that will offer Irish talent key roles in the productions, whilst the BBC in return will then be partners on several Irish-led documentaries. The partnership aims to create increased opportunities for Irish production companies to grow their ambitions both from a budgetary and distribution perspective.
Commenting on the new initiative IFB Production Executive Alan Maher said, "The last four years have seen a marked increase in the success of feature Irish documentaries both internationally and at home with local audiences. Particularly successful projects include ‘His & Hers' which premiered at Sundance and became a local box office hit, as well as ‘Waveriders', ‘Colony', ‘Knuckle' and ‘The Pipe'. However, the industry needs to remain ambitious in terms of growing opportunities for both co-production finance and international opportunities for our key creative talent and we believe that this new partnership with Storyville will achieve both of these aims."
Nick Fraser, Commissioning Editor for BBC Storyville said, "We have had great success with our collaborations with the Irish Film Board and we are delighted to be continuing to develop the relationship and not just within Storyville but across the wider BBC as well."
BBC Storyville is the BBC's flagship international documentary strand, commissioning, co-producing and acquiring the best narrative documentaries from around the world for broadcast on BBC2 and BBC4. Their films have won numerous awards, including several Academy Awards, and regularly secure theatrical releases and major festival exposure. Recent successes have included ‘Project Nim' and The Interrupters'.
Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) is the national development agency for the Irish film industry. The agency supports and promotes the Irish film industry and the use of Ireland as a location for international production.