British producers didn't lose their craft. They lost their ecosystem — and it happened in pieces, not all at once.
The Creative Europe exit
When the UK left the EU, it also lost direct access to Creative Europe's MEDIA programme, the fund that had supported UK audiovisual companies, distributors and cinemas for decades. Between 2014 and 2020 alone, MEDIA backed 196 UK films with €32 million in distribution funding, generating an estimated €575 million in revenue. Across the wider programme, UK recipients received €89.5 million over the prior period. That access ended after Brexit, and the UK confirmed it would not seek to rejoin the 2021–2027 programme — a decision estimated to cost the sector around €40 million a year in lost investment.
A replacement a fraction of the size
The UK government's answer was the UK Global Screen Fund (UKGSF), run by the BFI. Its annual budget is roughly £7 million — a fraction of what Creative Europe provided, and without the same reach into pan-European co-production networks, festival access and distribution support. A UK parliamentary committee has described it plainly as "insufficient in level and scope" to replace what was lost. There is now an industry push to secure UK associate membership of Creative Europe by 2027, but nothing has been agreed.
Co-productions in freefall
The gap isn't only about funding schemes. International co-productions with UK involvement fell by 29% between 2023 and 2024 alone — a single-year drop that reflects how much harder it has become to structure a cross-border film from London. At the same time, high-end television (HETV) — the streamer-funded, big-budget end of the market — has soaked up the majority of inward investment, while independent film production stagnated and first-time producers struggled to sustain a career at all.
The government's emergency lifeline
Late in 2024, the UK introduced the Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC), an enhanced Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit of 53% for qualifying productions budgeted up to £15 million. It's a genuine and welcome intervention — but it's a domestic tax relief, not a co-production funding route. It makes British films cheaper to finance. It doesn't, on its own, connect a UK producer to public money sitting in Rome, Cagliari or Brussels.
Where that leaves a UK producer
Put together, the picture is not "Brexit took the money." It's narrower and more practical: the easiest funding route into Europe closed, its replacement is small, and the co-production deals that used to fill the gap are getting harder to close. For a UK producer, the fastest way back into that funding is still a real, working relationship with a partner already inside the system — someone who can structure the co-production, meet the residency and spend requirements, and has already done it. That's the gap Hoxtonlab sits in, alongside partners across Italy and the Mediterranean, and from there, into Europe more widely.