Netflix announce UK Documentary Fund winners
Netflix has announced the six winners of its UK Documentary Talent Fund, all of whom will receive funding and professional support to make a short documentary.
The six filmmaking teams will participate in Netflix workshops about the creative process, HR, and the production of documentaries. They will then take everything they know and put it into an 8 to 12-minute documentary with a budget of £30,000.
These shorts will subsequently be shown on the streaming giant’s YouTube channel in the summer of 2025.
The competition for places was fierce, as Netflix explained in a statement. It read, “Following a rigorous application process and thousands of applications, a shortlist of 12 filmmaking teams from across the UK and Ireland were invited to Netflix’s UK headquarters to pitch in front of a panel of industry experts this month.” The prompt that each team used to spark their pitch was, “You’re never gonna believe this…”.
The documentaries that will be made by the winning teams cover a diverse list of topics, demonstrating how many fascinating stories are out there just waiting to be told.
Netflix UK Documentary Fund winners:
Band (David Chabeaux and Owen Tooth)
A Middle-England factory worker leads a bizarre Marching Band cult down a hilariously dark spiral of obsession.
Angry Bird (Lisa Smith and Jack Lilleywhite)
After a life-changing crash, Romani banger racer Georgie, aka ‘Angry Bird,’ is stripped of the space that once empowered her. Determined to become champion, she is forced to confront her ethnic identity as the only woman on the track.
The Herring Queen (Eilidh Munro and Isabella Bassett)
A teenage girl is crowned The Herring Queen in a tiny Scottish fishing village’s beauty pageant as a community holds onto the past and the world faces a sea change.
Divided We Stand (Imoje Aikhoje)
The doc explores the UK’s rise in far-right extremism through a dialogue between a Black activist and a former neo-Nazi.
The Good Farmer and the Failed Son (Ailill Martin and Peter Kilmartin)
A drag queen prepares to inherit the family farm.
Crimes of Collage (Maya Avidov and Savannah James-Bayly)
This is the story of a bold artistic prank that transformed stolen library books into provocative collages, led to a six-month prison sentence for theft and vandalism, and continues to leave an artistic legacy over 60 years later.
Kate Townsend, the Vice President of Netflix Original Feature Documentaries, led a team of industry professionals in choosing a judging panel to pick the six winners. That panel included Andy Mundy Castle, the director of White Nanny Black Child; Anna Higgs, chair of the BAFTA Film Committee; Danny Moltrasi, senior shorts programmer at Raindance; Lyttanya Shannon, the director of Sweet Bobby; Nicky Varley, head of production at Curious Film; Aloke Devichand, head of documentaries at Mindhouse; Bao Nguyen, the director of The Greatest Night in Pop; Felicity Morris, the director of Tinder Swindler and American Nightmare; and Zainab Ali Khan from Netflix’s original documentary commissioning team.
Townsend revealed, “The competition was fiercer than ever this year, and we were so inspired by the filmmakers we met on pitch day — so much so that we have decided to fund six films this year, rather than five. Ideas flooded in from all over the UK and Ireland and we’ve loved hearing all of these remarkable and entertaining stories. We’re confident that we’ve found some of the most exciting and talented upcoming filmmakers in the industry.”