Wales’ creative economy will take a step forward as Ffilm Cymru Wales invests in the growth of seven Welsh businesses, bringing the total of their Company Support investments to £645,500.

Ffilm Cymru’s Company Support fund is designed to build sustainable creative businesses in Wales, enabling growth, facilitating innovation and improving market reach. The fund offers Wales-based companies with a feature film focus the opportunity to apply for favourable loans tailored to their needs.

Kimberley Warner, Ffilm Cymru’s Head of Creative Business, comments:

“The creative companies in Wales are doing an incredible job of finding and nurturing talent, developing and exploiting their intellectual property and extending their revenues and markets. They’re dedicated to growing Wales’ creative sector, and their commitment brings long-term growth potential and jobs for the local economy. We’re proud that Ffilm Cymru enables home-grown talent and businesses.”

The latest round of company investments go to:

Little Door Productions Ltd, who will hire additional staff, allowing them to explore new intellectual property (IP) opportunities and extend relationships in digital markets. Company directors Elwen Rowlands and Hayley Manning have extensive experience and expertise in film and television, as well as commissions with BBC and Channel 4.

Vox Pictures will similarly use their investment to create jobs in Wales; the company will increase its core workforce to manage their growing slate of film and television projects. Led by Adrian Bate and Pip Broughton, the company will build upon their creative relationships with talent such as Owen Sheers (Aberfan: The Green Hollow, NHS: To Provide All People), and Craig Roberts, who has just finished his second film Eternal Beauty starring Sally Hawkins and David Thewlis, with funding from Ffilm Cymru, BFI and Welsh Government. Vox Pictures’ hit BBC Cymru Wales / S4C drama Un Bore Mercher / Keeping Faith starring Eve Myles was recently commissioned for a second series as Series 1 broke records as the most watched BBC Wales drama in 25 years.

Smaller awards were made to three new film entrepreneurs to support mentorship and specialist consultancy, providing guidance as their companies begin to grow. Caernarfon based Awen Media will develop their business through expert consultancy; Standoff Pictures, formed in February 2019 by The Toll filmmakers Matt Redd, Ryan Hooper and Mark Hopkins, will develop a company strategy with a clearly defined structure and targets; and Perfectmotion Ltd will engage a consultant to help streamline their strategy and processes, from research through to distribution.

We provided additional investments to previously supported companies Red & Black TV Ltd and Severn Screen. Producer John Giwa-Amu and writer-director Caradog James of Red & Black will continue to expand their slate of genre movies to include prestige films. Also, they will innovatively exploit their IP, both with interactive and gaming content. Severn Screen will make a key additional hire to build capacity across their feature film and television slate. Their recent productions include Gareth Evans’ horror Apostle for Netflix, comedy drama Denmark financed by Ffilm Cymru and BBC Films, and two seasons of bilingual crime drama Craith / Hidden for S4C and BBC Cymru Wales.

Commenting on the value of company-level investment, Little Door Productions’ joint director Hayley Manning says:

“We are delighted to have been selected for company support by Ffilm Cymru Wales. Being a newly established company, it is vital to be able to bring on development personnel and invest in IP from the outset to enable us to compete and succeed long term. Additionally, being Cardiff based it is also important for us to be supported locally.”

Welsh companies that have previously received company-level investment from Ffilm Cymru include Mad As Birds Films (Six Minutes to Midnight), Western Edge Pictures (Prevenge), Ie Ie Productions (Queerama), documentarians Barefoot Rascals (London Recruits) and Truth Department (The Borneo Case), Dogs of Annŵn (The Lighthouse) and Joio (Bang).