Meet our Whickers Film & TV Funding Award Finalists 2026

We’re so thrilled to present our five projects, and six finalists, for the Whickers Film & TV Funding Award 2026.

Selected by our expert judging panel of documentary commissioners, international distributors and filmmakers, these finalists will pitch their projects both to the jury and a live audience at The Whickers Pitch on Sunday 14th June as part of Sheffield DocFest 2026. The winning project will receive an incredible £120,000 towards production, with a runner-up awarded a £25,000 development grant.

This year’s judges were blown away by the standard of this year’s projects, making the task of whittling down the shortlist of 15 to the final 5 projects, an incredibly difficult task.

Fozia Khan, Head of Unscripted, Amazon UK said “I think the quality is just incredible.   It’s been really hard to judge as all of the projects are developed and they all have a proper narrative structure.  They are all incredible.”

The 33rd edition of Sheffield DocFest will take place from Wednesday 10th June to Monday 15th June 2026. Industry passes and tickets are now available to purchase here.