Dating App Bumble Unveils Winners of Female-Focused Film Fund

Dating app Bumble has unveiled the five projects to receive funding from its first U.K.-based and female-focused film initiative. 

First unveiled in May in a bid to address the gender imbalance in the industry, the Female Film Force saw all-female teams of writers, directors and producers invited to submit short film projects, which would each receive a grant £20,000 ($27,000). 

From more than 1,200 applications, the five have now been selected, with stories ranging from the tale of a dystopian, overcrowded Britain where a matriarch must escape a government-enforced death sentence, the last of Japan’s “women of the sea” divers and the hunt for a lost husband during the Battle of Waterloo. 

“Women in Film and TV are delighted to support this fantastic Female Film Force initiative,” said Kate Kinninmont, CEO of Women in Film & TV. “The pitch day was full of inspiration, creativity and sheer joy. It was a pleasure for us to meet these amazing women and their teams.”

Added Louise Troen, Bumble’s vp international marketing and communications: “The Female Film Force is an empowering initiative that set out to shine a light on the imbalance in the film industry and provide women across the U.K. and Ireland with the opportunity to tell the stories they are itching to tell.”

The five projects are:

Ama Divers
Georgina Yukiko Donovan (Director/producer); Yoko Ishitani (Producer)
The story of the Ama divers – the last of Japan’s ‘women of the sea’ and their fight to preserve their 3,000 year old way of life. (Documentary)

A Battle in Waterloo
Emma Moffat (Writer/Director); Tilly Coulson (Producer); Anna Hargreaves (Producer)
During the Battle of Waterloo, a soldier’s wife searches for her missing husband in the nearby forest and must resort to extraordinary measures to survive.

Fatima
Oluwaseun ‘Shey’ Osibowale (Producer/AD); Damilola Babalola (Director); Louise Ogunnaike (Writer); Funke Alafiatayo (DOP)
Presented with a dubious life changing opportunity, an international student faces the challenge of making a decision that could alter the course of her future.

Pat
Emma Wall (Writer/Director); Jo Halpin (Producer); Claire Byrne (DOP)
Set in 1975, Pat tells the story of a mother who stays connected to her son in New York through the only phone in the village.

The Leaving Party
Helena Sutcliffe (Writer/Producer); Emily Bray (Director); Milly Garnier (Writer/Director); Jenn Thomas (Producer)
In an overcrowded and aging Great Britain, a heroic matriarch must escape a government-decreed death sentence before her eightieth birthday arrives.

Related Stories

Related Story

Dating App Bumble Launches Female-Focused Film Fund