The 79th Cannes Film Festival is underway, boasting a star-studded line-up of movies – but not a single British film has been selected to compete for the prestigious Palme d’Or. A sign of the UK film industry being in decline, you might think. Au contraire.
The UK’s film sector is booming – just take a look at the latest statistics from the British Film Institute (BFI). Spending on UK film and high-end television production was an astonishing £6.8 billion in 2025, with film production reaching £2.8 billion, the highest level on record and an increase of 31 per cent on the previous year.
It’s a far cry from the mid-nineties when major studio-backed productions were relatively rare in the UK. Since then, sustained investment from the likes of Warner Bros. (not least through the Harry Potter franchise and the development of Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden) has helped transform the country into a global production hub with world-class infrastructure.
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However, a degree of uncertainty has been created by the twin perils of consolidation and budget cuts across the anglophone part of the industry (see Paramount’s recent acquisition of Warner Bros, driven by David Ellison and backed by his billionaire father Larry and the money taps being turned off at Netflix).
That may be bad news for the 180,000 people employed across film and high-end television in the UK, but it leaves filmmakers increasingly looking for funding beyond the ‘majors’. And that, my HNW friends, means opportunities for private capital.
Many entrepreneurs and private investors have taken a financial interest in the sector for some time. Industrialist Steven M. Rales has co-financed films by Wes Anderson, including Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Decades earlier, George Harrison’s £2 million backing made Monty Python’s Life of Brian possible. More recently, billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik has supported Oscar-winning titles such as The Zone of Interest and Conclave through his family office, Access Industries.
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Motivations differ, but they are rarely purely creative; much of the investment appeal lies in the structure itself. Tax credits and government support have historically sought to attract serious investors – and recent developments in the UK have sweetened the deal.
‘Film has traditionally been an asset class that many private investors were intrigued by but struggled to access in a disciplined way.’ said Joe Simpson, the Co-CEO of film financing company Ashland Hill.
‘What’s changed in recent years is the increasing sophistication of the financing structures around independent film, particularly in the UK market. With stronger tax incentives and more institutional-style underwriting, we’re seeing growing participation from family offices and private capital, especially in commercially focused projects with identifiable global audiences.’
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Independent films are usually financed through a mix of equity, broadcaster deals and pre-sales to distributors such as Lionsgate or StudioCanal. But as budgets tighten at the mid-range level, government tax relief has become a key part of the equation. In the UK, the current Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) offers around 40 per cent relief for qualifying productions.
As financier Phil Hunt of Head Gear Films puts it, this provides ‘near-risk-free money’ that helps anchor deals, even if it doesn’t complete them. In practice, it has made the UK more attractive as a production base, but it doesn’t close the gap in financing by itself.
There is still plenty of room – and therefore good terms – for private capital. With traditional pre-sales under pressure, the final slice of many film budgets now often comes from HNW individuals, family offices and private equity, who are drawn in by the combination of structured tax support and potential upside.
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As Hunt puts it, ‘the last 15-25 per cent of a budget – sometimes more – increasingly has to come from private capital. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Private capital can be faster, more flexible, and less constrained by the content requirements that come with public money.’
Mariyah Dosani, the director of media and entertainment financing at UK-based investment firm Calculus Capital, finds that this is an increasingly important part of the conversation with family offices and wealth managers, adding that ‘the UK TV and film sector has rarely offered a more compelling entry point for private investors’.
‘The combination of enhanced government tax credits, a genuine funding gap at the mid-budget level, and the availability of EIS, VCT and business relief structures means that sophisticated investors can access real, cultural and financial upside depending on their need with a risk profile that has become meaningfully more manageable.’
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So how can private investors get a piece of the action?
Entry points in the UK typically run through established production companies (DNA Films, See-Saw Films or my own company, Swipe Films, are names to conjure with), alongside specialist financiers (such as Head Gear, Calculus or Ashland Hill).
Others work through advisory firms such as Lee & Thompson. The law firm works with its producer clients to bring their films and high-end television to fruition. It also work closely with clients including HNWs and family offices to structure and protect their film and television investments.
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Christos Michaels, the firm’s head of film, is acutely aware that before financiers invest, ‘they are looking for specialised advisers with a knowledge of the related risk profile together with experienced legal and tax advisers, to make sure that all the risks have been appraised’.
The new tax relief has already been praised by major filmmakers, including Richard Curtis and Christopher Nolan, who called it ‘game changing’ and said it would create new opportunities for British crews, filmmakers and cast members for years to come.
But for private investors, that opportunity is just beginning to take shape.
