Rob Deacon Launches Phoenix Film Finance to Cash-Flow UK Indie Tax Credits
Movie marketing veteran Rob Deacon has launched Phoenix Film Finance, a company designed to solve one of the most stubborn problems in British independent film: getting money to film-makers before the government's tax credit actually lands.
Phoenix cash-flows the UK's Independent Film Tax Credit — meaning it lends production companies the value of the tax relief they are owed, so they can keep shooting and paying crew without waiting months for the government cheque to clear. Deacon calls the loan rates "filmmaker friendly" and says the sweet spot is tax credit loans under £500,000, though the firm has rolling capital for productions budgeted at £2 million to £3 million. The company, which he set up in 2025, also plans to explore cash-flowing VAT for UK productions and to take selective equity and gap financing positions — gap financing being the money that bridges the shortfall between a film's confirmed funding and its total budget (Variety; Phoenix Film Finance).
Phoenix operates from Edinburgh and London. Deacon works alongside executive producer Ian Davies of Initialize Films, the UK outfit formerly known as Noah Media Group and Boudica Film Fund. The partnership brings together two strands of the British film economy: Deacon's 25-plus years in publicity and marketing across blockbuster and arthouse, theatrical and streaming releases, and Davies's production-finance expertise (Variety).
Deacon's recent CV includes a stint as interim head of communications at BBC Film from August 2025 to February 2026. He was at the Venice Film Festival on September 5 and 6 for meetings, according to Variety.
Phoenix already has three films on its slate. Carol Morley's fiction feature 7 Miles Out, adapted from her semi-autobiographical novel, is produced by Cairo Cannon of Cannon and Morley Productions in association with Revolution Films and will have its world premiere in competition at the BFI London Film Festival. Ari Matikainen's documentary The Game of Chaos is produced by Kinocompany, Traumfabriek and Initialize Films, with backing from Trailblazers, the Finnish Film Foundation, the Estonian Film Fund and YLE. And Pale Pink, a sci-fi animation directed by Kuba Mikurda and co-produced by the UK's Caspian Films, is due for theatrical release in 2028 (Variety).
For a British independent production, the gap between what the tax credit promises and when the money actually arrives can stall a shoot or push a film into debt. Phoenix is betting that lending against that credit — at rates film-makers can live with — is a business worth building.
