Grants awarded: Development Fund for Broadcast, Games and Film
Project summaries of Wellcome grants awarded under the scheme ‘Development Fund for Broadcast, Games and Film’. The scheme has been replaced by the Public Engagement Fund.
Adult Life Skills
Pico Pictures
Released in 2016
Adult Life Skills is a feature film about twin loss and the resultant identity crisis. A drama starring Jodie Whittaker, this film explores the psychology of twin loss, the specific identity crises and loss of a sense of the self that can occur and, crucially, how this affects relationships and friendships. Adult Life Skills won a Development Award in 2014.
Extreme A&E
Dragonfly Film and Television
Broadcast in April 2012
In Extreme A&E, Dr Kevin Fong investigates some of the world's most dangerous, diverse and demanding emergency medicine environments to uncover the science of saving lives. This four-part series from Dragonfly Film and Television was commissioned by Channel 4.
Health Before the Health Service
Available Light Productions
Broadcast in September 2012
Available Light Productions co-produced a two-part series for BBC Four entitled Health Before the Health Service. Their 60-minute film used doctors' and other health professionals' own amateur films of their working and domestic lives, shot in the years before the establishment of the NHS in 1948.
Caster Semenya
Rise Films Ltd
Broadcast in February 2011
Caster Semenya: Too fast to be a woman was broadcast on BBC Two in February 2011. The documentary follows the story of Caster Semenya and her ban from athletics over claims about her gender, and explores the way in which society and the medical profession treats people born intersex. The film was commissioned by the BBC (production funding of £160,000 had been awarded) after a Broadcast Development Award allowed the film-makers to travel to South Africa and secure exclusive access to Semenya as well as further research her condition with a variety of scientific consultants.
Food Hospital website
Channel 4
2011
Channel 4's popular Food Hospital series was complemented by a website created with funds from a Broadcast Development Award in 2011. The website provides a comprehensive resource that reviews the research and evidence behind the claims that certain foods have causal effects on medical conditions.