Young Audiences Screening Days 2022

In an age of cultural inside jokes, meme marketing is one of the most authentic and captivating ways to engage with young people. Traditional marketing works for traditional arthouse audiences, but how can social media deliver real value? In this session led by Shelby Cooke from young film programmers group Film East, you’ll discover how these techniques are scalable for all organisations, how to hone a voice that sits alongside your existing brands and how memes can bring in real audiences.

Whether working in film exhibition or attending independent film events, working-class young people face barriers that are often overlooked by many in the film industry. In this interactive session, academic, EDI consultant, and former film festival chair (SQIFF) Leanne Dawson discusses the low-cost and no-cost practical changes that film organisations can make to get audiences over the threshold and to help working-class people thrive in their early career in film.

Mentorship takes many forms but it can be a powerful way for dialogue to happen across the divide. For mentees, it can be a powerful step up and help them feel included. For mentors, it offers a tangible intervention. In this session led by BFI FAN’s Youth Audiences Manager Moira McVean, we’ll hear from organisations who have implemented different models of mentorship and what the practical steps are to making it work for everyone involved.

Whatever bringing young people into your venue means to you, there are some underlying principles that make some projects connect, while others flop. This session is led by Julia Andrews-Clifford who has set up a network of 35 young audience initiatives across the South East taking as unique approaches as the communities they are based in. Along with case studies from young people on their projects, it’ll help you define and focus your approach to build vibrant, long-lasting connections with local young people.

What if your independent cinema was a place not just to watch films, but a hub for those who make them? To coincide with our screening of Film4’s Foresight programme (designed as a tool to engage new people in filmmaking), we take a look at cinemas that have successfully developed filmmaking talent strands and brought new young people into their cinema in the process.

It’s not just films that look better on the big screen: gaming is another major way of inviting people into your cinema. Now one of the UK’s top three pastimes for under 30s, gaming can build bridges and create a palpable sense of fun in your venue. But how can you host gaming events in your venue? We speak to two people making major gains on doing so, at a scale for any budget.

Anime films are a big hit with under 30s, but if you’re not an otaku, how can you work out which titles are going to work in your venue, how to reach their audience and how to make fun events around animations for adults? In this session, we look at developing audiences for anime with Scotland’s All the Anime, one of the UK’s most successful anime platforms, and hone in on their new release The Deer King.