For our final blog of the year, we’re sharing regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. Thank you for reading our articles this year — from everyone at the ICO we wish you a very Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you at the cinema in 2024.
ICO News
- Registration is now open for Spring Screening Days 2024, which will take place at BFI Southbank, London from 8-11 March and online from 11-17 March. We’ve also confirmed the first film for the programme: Hoard, British writer-director Luna Carmoon’s visceral psychological drama that won her the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature at this year’s BFI London Film Festival. We’ve got lots more exciting titles in the pipeline and in-person passes for this event usually sell out in advance, so make sure to book soon if you plan to join us at BFI Southbank.
- Earlier this month, we were joined on the Cinema of Ideas by filmmakers Ella Glendining, Kyla Harris (It’s Personal) and Jim LeBrecht (Crip Camp) to mark the release of Ella’s film Is There Anybody Out There?, discuss the provocation of using film to tell disabled stories, and celebrate some of the amazing work being made. If you missed the discussion, you can catch up with a recording on our YouTube channel.
- In case you missed it, last week the ICO team wrote about some of their favourite cinema experiences of 2023 — whether that be new films released this year, old films we saw for the first time, or specific screenings which will stay with them for years to come. Read about their highlights.
- Looking for a space to work from for 2024? We currently have several desks available to rent in our office, located just a few minutes walk from London Bridge station. Take a look at the details and get in touch if you’d like to arrange a viewing.
- We’re looking to commission new writing for our blog. If you have an idea for an article about a current issue in film exhibition or a case study of good practice, then we’d love to hear from you! Read our guidelines to see some topics we’re interested in and information on how to submit your pitch.
Opportunities & Resources
- Want to bring in new audiences to your venue or festival? Applications are open for REACH: Strategic Audience Development, a project-driven training programme for film exhibitors who want to build their expertise in growing and diversifying audiences. This is a BFI FAN training course open to all FAN members across the UK. Find out more and apply by Wednesday 24 January.
- BFI FAN: Green Hour is a new series of events for UK film exhibitors focusing on environmental sustainability. Sign up for the next session on Wednesday 10 January, where they’ll be exploring sustainable procurement & how to work with ethical, low-carbon suppliers.
- Flatpack is inviting applications from curators and programmers from underrepresented groups for the next Flatpack Festival. Proposals can include things like films, performances, talks or workshops. The deadline to apply is 7 January!
- Flatpack has also opened applications for a new, funded, collaborative doctoral award exploring Birmingham’s suburban cinema stories. A fantastic chance for someone to immerse themselves in the story of how cinema helped to shape the streets and social fabric of Birmingham — apply by 10 January.
- Exeter Phoenix has launched two new commissions for their Phoenix Archive Project! The Phoenix Archive contains approximately five hours of previously unseen footage from the 1930s through to the early ’60s, shot on silent 16mm film – which is now restored and digitised to 2K video. The commissions, worth £4,250 each, are looking for filmmakers, artists or anyone with a creative practice to develop creative responses to the footage.
- Reclaim the Frame has released its 2023 year in review, which shows that only 27% (155/588) of films released in the UK this year were made by people of marginalised genders — an increase of only 3% on last year, and representing zero progress since 2019.
- There are currently roles available at Park Circus, Open City Documentary Festival, Phoenix East Finchley, Sheffield DocFest and more.
Good Reads
- Nuns, land girls, ballet dancers: the paradoxes of Powell and Pressburger’s women
- Facing pressure in India, Netflix and Amazon back down on daring films
- The year in film: If it makes you cry, it must be good
- Sight and Sound’s 50 best films of 2023
- Plus, all the ballots for the Sight and Sound poll
- The many faces of Maria Schneider
- In water and out of focus: on Hong Sangsoo’s latest cine-meditation
- Six of Yasujiro Ozu’s most underappreciated works
- The safe emotional spaces of Wes Anderson’s cinema
- 101 hidden gems: the greatest films you’ve never seen
- On the women that changed the Western
- The best film posters of 2023
- Screen Slate’s best movies of 2023: First viewings and discoveries
- The best restorations of 2023
- The best short films of 2023
- The best undistributed films of 2023
- Frederick Wiseman’s The Store (good watch)
- On Wim Wenders’s cinema of sincerity
- On Jeremy Cooper’s novel of simmering cinephilia, Brian
- The year in film soundtracks
- The Nonconformist: A Conversation with Michael Roemer
- 10 films Radiance Films tried, and sadly failed, to licence
- Notebook’s 2023 cinephile gift guide
- The Town of Forking Paths: Laura Citarella on Trenque Lauquen
Header image: Hoard (dir. Luna Carmoon, 2023), image courtesy of Vertigo Releasing