Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society.
ICO News
- This month we published the results of our UK Film Exhibition Workforce Survey, providing a snapshot of who is currently working in film exhibition, what needs to change, and what skills and training the sector requires to develop. This type of data had not been collected for over a decade and, with 602 responses, this is the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the UK film exhibition sector. Read the report here.
- Registration is now open for Inclusion & Diversity Screening Days 2022, a hybrid event for cinemas and exhibitors of all kinds looking to make a difference to who is included in the audience and workforce of UK film. This year’s event will take place online on Wednesday 7 September and at Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal on Friday 9 September, and this week we announced the first two films in the programme: The Gravedigger’s Wife and Right of Way. Make sure to book your pass before the deadline on Friday 19 August.
- As part of this year’s BFI blockbuster horror season In Dreams Are Monsters, we are pleased to be running a nationwide tour of seven titles available on special terms and without transport fees, making it easier than ever to bring these films to existing and new audiences. The films are available to book for screenings taking place between 1 October – 31 December. Check out the line-up here.
- We were thrilled to launch our new Introductory Guide to Programming last week. Comprehensively updated for the digital age, this free-to-download resource gives in-depth insights into all aspects of film programming, including: rights and formats, working with distributors, programming repertory film, new programming opportunities in the digital age and more.
- This month on the Cinema of Ideas we held Feast from the East, a cinematic celebration of the food, feasts and famously fertile soil of Eastern Europe – with proceeds going to fundraising campaigns in support of Ukraine. If you missed it, you can now catch up with recordings of the cooking workshop with chef Alissa Timoshkina and the panel discussion on Ukrainian film and food.
- In July the Cinema of Ideas was host to the world premiere of Projectionism, a new short film by artist filmmaker Sarah Wood made in response to an open call for cinema memories from the cinema workers, makers and thinkers who keep film culture alive and well despite the challenges of the times. The screening has now ended, but the film is available for cinemas to book and a recording of the Q&A with Sarah Wood will be on our YouTube channel very soon.
Opportunities
- The deadline for the BFI’s call for Expressions of Interest for partners to deliver BFI National Lottery funded audience and talent development activity from April 2023 is fast approaching – at midday on 8 August. Full details, including guidance and how to apply online, can be found on their website.
- Passes are now on sale for the Community Cinema Conference 2022. Taking place 5-6 November at The Workstation, Sheffield, it’s an opportunity to meet and connect with a wide network of organisations from around the UK and celebrate the future of community-led film exhibition.
- Join BFI FAN for Distributor Slate Days 2022 at Picturehouse Central on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 September, a chance to find out about upcoming theatrical releases and to meet with UK distributors.
- Cinema Rediscovered was back in Bristol for its sixth edition earlier this month. Three touring packages launched at the festival, with programmes on Pre-Code Hollywood, women’s stories from the Global South and films made by European directors who moved to America before the outbreak of WWII. Read this document to find out more and book the titles for your venue.
- Applications for Creative Folkstone’s Artist Residency Programme at Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage are now open. The programme offers four residencies of up to one-month long, supported with a weekly £500 grant. Apply by 26 August.
- This month, Film Hub South East ran a webinar on how the Community Ownership Fund can support local and regional campaigns across the UK to take cinemas into community ownership. If you missed it, you can now catch-up with the recording.
- Applications are now open for Berlinale Talents, a development programme for film professionals featuring discipline-specific workshops, networking events and more.
- Lost Connections, an archive-based short film about our extraordinary collective experience since March 2020, has won this year’s FOCAL International Award for Best Use of Footage in a Short Film Production. The film is free for cinemas to book for online and in-venue screenings.
- Open to arts organisations across Scotland, The Audience Agency’s Data for Audience Development in Scotland programme is a free training series to help participating organisations plan, implement and evaluate their audience development activities to achieve stronger data-driven solutions.
- There are currently roles available at Phoenix East Finchley, the UKCA, the Ealing Project, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Glasgow Film Festival and more.
Upcoming film screenings & seasons
- Cinema Restored is a new bi-monthly film strand at the Barbican bringing fresh restorations of global art cinema to a London audience. This Sunday 31 July they’re screening Maangamizi: The Ancient One, a Tanzanian film depicting the relationship between three women and how spiritual consciousness provides deep connections between them.
- Magnum Photos host their first ever UK film festival at the Rio on Saturday 30 July, spanning archival gems to UK premieres, and encouraging a critical interrogation of photojournalism through the lens of curiosity.
- Bird’s Eye View’s Queerious season culminates in a special preview of Passion (dir. Maja Borg), plus short film Ishtar and a Q&A with director Mia Georgis, on Sunday 31 July at the Rio.
- In the Black Fantastic is a season of visionary films drawing on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism. At BFI Southbank until Sunday 31 July.
- Throughout July, Le Cinéma Club presents the platform’s second annual Summer Music Festival, featuring five films that celebrate the energy of live music.
- With the support of Film Hub Wales’ Made in Wales project, two new films from Welsh talent that follow the lives of trans women in India and the USA are coming to cinemas this year. Upcoming showings include screenings at Kinokulture (Oswestry), Aberystwyth Arts Centre, and Chapter (Cardiff).
Good reads/watches/listens
- The ICFR’s Open Letter to the International Film Community, calling for it to support recently imprisoned Iranian filmmakers
- The BFI’s Economic Review of UK Independent Film
- Bird’s Eye View on the recent drop in films made by women
- Muses No More: The pioneering women of surrealist cinema
- Nurturing Reciprocity in African Film
- Between Us We Have a Memory: Recollections of Cinemagoing
- The European Women Who Shaped the Hollywood Golden Age
- Good Governance: The path to a healthy, happy and thriving organisation
- The line-up for this year’s Venice Film Festival
- Rewriting Film History (With the Women in it) [Part One]
- The Film We Can’t See (podcast)
- Only In Theaters: The stories of cinemas that made history (podcast)
- Watch hundreds of Polish classics online courtesy of the Polish Film Institute
- On the long-lost Iranian masterpiece, Chess of the Wind
- 20 Years of Young Cinema from Germany
- Cinema and Everyday Resistance (podcast)
- Iranian directors fear for safety after major filmmakers arrested
- Ayanna Dozier on front-of-house museum work
- A Conversation with In the Black Fantastic curator Ekow Eshun
- On the 6th Annual Nitrate Picture Show
- Favourites and Discoveries from Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022
- In Praise of Satyajit Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy
- Three Colours Trilogy: Why Kieślowski’s arthouse event films continue to dazzle
- Pamela Hutchinson on Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022 (podcast)
- Treasures from the Jeonju Cinema Project
We post our news & opportunities round up on the final Thursday of every month. Have something you want included? Email Sami: sami.abdul-razzak@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk
Header image: The Gravedigger’s Wife, courtesy of Aya Distribution. Screening as part of ID Screening Days 2022.