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Creative England
2019

This month, we held Creative England Live at Kings Place in London. The speakers, including DCMS’s Margot James and Oscar-winning Rachel Shenton, offered hard-won and practical advice from how to work with an angel investor, to what it’s like to rapidly grow your business or switch to ethical banking. Thanks to UDL intellectual property for supporting the afternoon reception, and to Backstage Academy for showcasing their creative interactive display. To learn more about the day’s activities, read the latest blog post on the Creative England website.

We announced this year’s CE50, in partnership with the Guardian who covered the present CE50 list. The CE50 outlines the 50 most exciting, innovative and disruptive creative companies and individuals across the country. CE50 highlights some of the exceptional talent that we believe will be central to the country’s creative economy in the coming years. Visit the Creative England website to find out more about the talented individuals and companies on this year’s list.

In May, we hosted the Filming in England Summit, which brought together Film & TV industry representatives and filming partners within local authorities from across England. Over eighty Local Authority attendees were addressed by industry experts sharing advice and good practice across subjects such as maximising filming, making the economic case and drones.

Film & TV

Sheffield Doc/Fest is taking place from 6^th-11^thJune. We’ve partnered with Northern Docs to deliver a networking event for filmmakers based in the North of England and those who’d like to work with them. We’re also supporting a Meet the Alternate Realities Artists following the Alternate Realities Summit, where there will be a chance to carry on the discussions from the summit.

We're proud that 4 films, supported by Creative England, showcased in the ‘Great 8’ line up in Cannes of the best Emerging British features coming soon. We backed Perfect 10 and Make Up via iFeatures, and developed Days of the Bagnold Summer and Lynn + Lucy via our Emerging Talent Fund.

The Smalls Film Festival is back for 2019, and they’re taking over Shoreditch from the 6th - 9th September, with the very best in films, sessions and parties. Every year, The Smalls explore a new theme with a special submissions category and this year the theme will be focussing on The Environment. Along with this special category, The Smalls are also bringing back seven other categories for filmmakers to join, which do not have an environmental focus.

One of Creative England's shortFLIX alumni Ben Robins has launched a Kickstarter for his short, dark comedy film The Last Jeff, about an estranged father and daughter who are pulled back together by his extreme new belief that he’s the last living person on Earth. Find out more about how you can support this film here.

Games

Greenshoots is a Creative England investment initiative for independent game developers, run in partnership with Xbox, offering repayable investments for projects which are focused on helping developers to overcome the hurdles of investment, marketing and discoverability. Read how developers benefitted from previous rounds of Greenshoots in the Guardian.

Cooperative Innovations, one of Creative England's 2019 CE50 companies, have licensed award-winning co-op party game Spaceteam from its creator Henry Smith of Sleeping Beast Games, allowing the company to recreate the game on a variety of platforms. Find out more here.

Mystic Vale: Vale of the Wild by Nomad Games, who we have invested in and who were selected as part of the 2015 CE50 cohort, is out now on steam. Vale of the Wind introduces 54 new advancement cards, 18 vale cars to the Mystic Vale base game, and 8 Leader cards alongside the new Eclipse mechanic.

Tech & Digital

The New Ideas Fund, delivered as part of Creative England’s Creative Enterprise, offers small seed funding to sole traders, start-ups and small businesses for their creative business ideas. This scheme is designed to benefit screen based storytelling businesses in the English regions. Find out if the fund could work for you on our website.

Applications are now open for the second cohort of Tech Nation Fintech – the sector-specific scaleup growth programme. They’re looking for the UK’s very best pre Series A fintechs, to help them accelerate their growth and scale at speed. Apply here before 9^thJuly.

GirlDreamer, one of Creative England's 2019 CE50 companies, have released a Crowdfunder project, the purpose of which is to use sport as a tool for social change and create more opportunities for women of colour. Having already raised just over £12,000, they’re looking to raise £30,000 by 24^thJune 2019. Find out more about the project here.

Events

We're hosting the very last Hertfordshire ProConnect networking event on 13^thJune. We will be celebrating the success of the programme and learning more about the support offered to SME’s. Over the last two years the ProConnect programme has delivered a series of workshops, networking evenings, one-to-one support and business grants focused on supporting small creative businesses, sole traders and related industries. Secure your place on this free event, fully funded by ERDF here.

EPIC is a three-year collaborative project to improve the use of technology in health and social care in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We’ve got two events coming up in June, the first outlining how to get your innovation adopted by the NHS with Matthew Campbell-Hill on 19^thJune. We’ve then got an event on 28^thJune with Chris Wittle,who will take attendees through how to fuel your healthcare innovation. These events are free to attend and fully funded by ERDF.

We partnered with Northern Docs to curate and host a two-day development workshop at HOME in Manchester, revolving around the ‘business of documentaries’: looking at some of the key areas factual producers need to contend with. Across the two days, there was a line-up of industry professionals speaking on key subjects such as pitching, funding and distribution. Find out more about future Creative England events here.

OxLEP and Oxford Brookes University are working in collaboration with national partners including Creative England, Creative Industries Federation, Arts Council England and the Digital Catapult to bring Oxfordshire’s ‘world-class’ creative industries together in its first dedicated event on 27th June 2019. Innovators, entrepreneurs, national sector bodies, industry leaders and influencers, will all have the chance to convene and celebrate the extraordinary vibrancy and dynamism of the creative industries in Oxfordshire.