Developing Your Film Festival Online Course

Welcome to the ICO’s Developing Your Film Festival online course. Over the course of these five lessons, you’ll hear from some of the industry’s leading experts and have the chance to engage with peers from festivals around the world.

If you were looking for the latest edition of the in-person Developing Your Film Festival course, please click here.

As we venture further into the 21^st century, the role of the film festival in the exhibition industry has grown dramatically. Festivals offer many films their first point of access to audiences around the world. On top of this, many festivals have become important elements of the events calendar for their city or town; not only improving the local provision of film, but also attracting audiences from further afield and introducing them to a new location.

Despite this expansion in festivals’ impact and relevance, there is an apparent lack of training opportunities for those organising and managing these pioneering events – a gap in provision this course was created to fill.

In your own time and at your own pace, you’ll gain knowledge, insights and new techniques that you can immediately begin utilising at your own festival, to help you take that next step.

If you require any assistance with the online learning platform, or wish to provide feedback, please email training@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk and we will respond as soon as possible.

If you have already enrolled for the course, you can login here.

Course Information

Estimated Time: 4 weeks

Difficulty: Intermediate

Categories: Festivals

Course Instructors

Catharine Des Forges Course Leader

David Sin Course Leader

• Lessons

  • Introduction
    • Introduction to Developing Your Film Festival
    • A bit more about you
    • An update on the film festival sector
  • Strategic Planning
    • Lesson Introduction – Strategic Planning
    • What is a strategic plan?
    • Your income building strategy
    • Evaluating your performance
    • Successful festivals
  • Partnerships and Sponsorships
    • Lesson Introduction – Partnerships and Sponsorships
    • Understanding your audience
    • Focusing on your competitors
    • Research, Research, Research
    • Brand Relationships
    • 5-Alive
    • Pitching: Part one
    • Pitching: Part two
  • Introduction to Audience Segmentation
    • Lesson Introduction – Audience Segmentation
    • Defining audience development
    • Best practice for audience development
    • Audience segmentation
    • Creating an action plan
    • Researching new audiences
  • VOD and the future of festivals
    • Lesson Introduction – VOD and the future of festivals
    • Your digital strategy
    • New audiences
    • Letting your audiences teach you
    • Tips on VOD
    • The future of film festivals
  • How to get the press on your side
    • Lesson Introduction – How to get the press on your side
    • Your aims as a festival
    • Press releases and publicists
    • Your festival website
    • Before and during your festival
    • After the festival
  • Conclusion
    • Time to start developing your film festival
    • Your feedback