Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society.
ICO News
- Applications are now open for Partnership and Revenue Success for Film Festivals, our training programme to help you transform your festival’s partnership strategy. This second edition of the course will take place from 16-18 April in Oslo, and is open to film festivals worldwide.
- To help you kickstart 2024, we’re offering a 25% discount across all of our online training courses until Wednesday 31 January – including our courses on environmental sustainability, programming, digital marketing and more. We’ve also recorded a new introduction to the Developing Your Film Festival course, which features an extended conversation between our Director Catharine Des Forges and Head of Cinemas David Sin that covers some of the key changes made in the film festival sector over the last few years.
- Calling all film festivals! Take our survey on the Financial Health of Global Film Festivals and share your thoughts on the difficulties festivals are facing. We’ve created this survey to lobby for greater awareness and encourage more economic intervention by public funders, national institutions, and regional government. Please help spread the word!
- Registration for Spring Screening Days is open until Friday 23 February. This year’s event is taking place from 8-11 March at BFI Southbank, London and online from 11-17 March, and is a great space for exhibitors to preview upcoming films and get the latest on audience development. There are still lots of films to be confirmed, but so far the line-up includes Love Lies Bleeding, Slow, Rosalie, Omen and Hoard.
Opportunities & Resources
- Applications to the current round of the Community Ownership Fund close on 31 January. The fund supports community groups across the UK to take ownership of assets that are at risk of being lost to the community (including cultural buildings such as cinemas).
- BFI FAN: Green Exhibitors Mentoring is a new training programme supporting UK exhibitors to take the next steps in their sustainability journey. Join organisations from across the UK from March-July for group learning sessions, one-to-one expert mentoring and a development bursary of up to £500.
- A new app, Curate-It, launched this month. Designed by Aya Films, it provides users with an in-depth step-by-step guide for putting on a film event and aims to make information about film curation more accessible in the digital space.
- The third edition of BFI FAN: Green Hour takes place on Wednesday 21 February and focuses on environmental film programming. They’ll be joined by representatives from Mammoth – A Climate Action Cinema, Exeter Phoenix, Picturehouse and Keswick Alhambra Cinema to discuss the UK Green Film Network and how exhibitors can get involved.
- Registration for the third annual TNB XPO is now open. Taking place from 25-28 March at Rich Mix, London and online, this landmark event showcases Black excellence and encourages increased diversity within the UK screen industries and internationally.
- BFI FAN: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in Focus is a new series of webinars for UK film exhibitors, focusing on accessibility for deaf audiences. Join them on 14 February for the first edition, exploring how exhibitors can advocate for standardised, accessible screenings and provisions.
- Now in its 6th year, the Arts Marketing Association’s Inclusivity & Audiences Day champions EDI work from across the UK’s arts and culture sector. The event takes place online on 6 March and early-bird registration is available until 2 February.
- A reminder that the next National Lottery Open Week will take place from 9-17 March. Register to get involved and say thank you to National Lottery players by providing special offers such as free tickets or behind-the-scenes tours of your venue.
- Did you know that the Film and TV Charity offers a free legal advice service? Visit their website to see some of the areas you can get advice on from their team.
Good Reads
- The best Blu-rays and DVDs of 2023
- The unorthodox poetry of indolence: Remembering Otar Iosseliani
- Fantasy double features of 2023
- Try to imitate others and fail: An afternoon with Robert Bresson
- Tailor Made: MUBI’s new podcast season on landmark films that captured major fashions of their times
- The most anticipated films of 2024
- 30 films the Scala never got to play
- Out of the shadows: Celebrating Sergei Parajanov
- On Elaine May’s pseudonymously penned second screenplay, Such Good Friends
- Somebody’s watching me: On Patrick Tam’s Hong Kong New Wave watershed Nomad
- Sabzian’s round-up of new and upcoming film books
- Songs of convenience: On women in the film of Yasujiro Ozu
- A film projectionist once more – resurrecting a dying craft
- Notebook’s essential reads from 2023
- On the films of Lorenza Mazzetti and the Free Cinema movement
- June Givanni to receive special award at BAFTA 2024
- Common Bonds: Caden Mark Gardner and Jenni Olson on Masc
Header image: Omen (dir. Baloji, 2023)