Open Frame: Camden Short Film Fund

Born By A River launches Open Frame: Camden short film fund to support creation of a bold original fiction project

Production company Born By A River is accepting submissions from early-career filmmakers seeking to produce a bold, author-driven short fiction project, as part of an open call closing on 3 December 2025.

With funding and resource support from industry project partners and Camden Council, Open Frame is a tailored programme designed to support Black British filmmakers based in the London Borough of Camden at the intersection of disability/neurodivergence and/or from an underrepresented gender/sexuality. 

Projects will be assessed on the basis of the applying filmmaker(s), viability of production, and alignment with Born By A River’s priorities: passionate, bold storytelling with social and cultural impact, attentive to topics related to diasporas, disabilities, gender and sexualities. 

The selected work will be made in the context of a live research project seeking to assess the various factors that impact an individual’s journey throughout the film recruitment and production processes, and the role organisational culture has on collective and individual working cultures. Applicants will be expected to participate in an informal research interview during the project, and commit to attending a focus group at its conclusion, which will contribute to the production of a research report. 

Applications are accepted from individual writer and director pairings or a sole writer-director - with or without a producer attached - where at least one of these core team members meets the eligibility criteria. Applicants must have a connection with the London Borough of Camden, or their project must have a substantive and meaningful connection to the area.