ICO News
We’ve got TONNES of great projects keeping us busy this month, so let’s get straight to it:
- The big news for us is the relaunch of Cultural Cinema Exhibition. This is one of our most loved training courses and with good reason. People are always asking how to break into the indie cinema scene, and this is genuinely one of the best ways to do it. If you’re dying to become a programmer, or want to start a cinema, or generally do amazing things in film, this is the big one. Applications needed very soon!
- Screening Days, your chance to see all of the upcoming indie releases that matter before anyone else, is taking great shape. We’ll have over twenty films in the final line up, but what we have already is looking strong with some of the big festival films making the line up. Lady Macbeth, Berlin Syndrome and I Am Not Your Negro are all going to be buzz titles in the next few months, so why not come and get ahead of the curve?
- We’re always telling people we only work with the best, and so it’s a delight to be able to announce that we’re reissuing ‘the greatest film of the 21st Century’ in April. Mulholland Drive is David Lynch’s noir headtrip starring Naomi Watts and is available in a new director-approved 4K restoration. We’re releasing it on 14 April and you can feel the pure existential dread of what lies behind the diner once more!
- Speaking of classics, we’re bringing La Strada back to screens in May. It’s sixty years since Fellini’s classic won the first ever Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, so it’s a good chance to look back at past winners and relive Giulietta Masina’s incredible performance and Nino Rota’s fantastic score.
- Releasing Power in Our Hands last year gave us a clear idea of how much Deaf audiences love the cinema how much needs to be done to make it a welcoming space for them. We’re running six free workshops across the UK to help your venue understand Deaf people’s needs. We’re stopping at Home in Manchester, Broadway in Nottingham, Stratford East Picturehouse in London, Tyneside in Newcastle, Plymouth Arts Centre and Queens Film Theatre in Belfast. See how to get involved here.
- We are always looking for ways to make the big screen experience as powerful as possible, so we’re very happy about our FREE Film Formats workshop at Showroom in Sheffield. Whether you’re looking to start showing films on 16mm or 35mm or you want to upgrade from DVD screenings to DCP, this is the place to get started.
- For the fourth time, we’re sharing the incredible British talent in the BAFTA Shorts touring programme. Watching shorts is a rare and compelling experience in the cinema and we can bring one of the filmmakers to your venue for free. Check out the details here.
- Developing Your Film Festival is our biggest international course and this is the first year it’ll be at Edinburgh International Film Festival! If your film festival could do with bigger audiences, better profile and larger income (and who doesn’t?) this is for you.
- Britain on Film: Rural Life is ready to go out to venues. This is a moving, funny and eye-opening view of our countryside. Our Railways package proved that there is a big audience for archive film. Check out the trailer to get a flavour of the breadth of what we’ve crammed in.
Opportunities and Calls for Submissions
- Greenwich University are calling for papers for their Black Film British Cinema conference. This is a great opportunity to contribute to an area of study that needs more critical attention. Get your papers in by 3 February.
- Creative Europe have a contest for you to get a ticket to Cannes Film Festival and it’s all about your knowledge of European Films. Click over here for details.
- Applications are now open for Europa Cinemas Innovation Lab in Sofia this March. It’s all about building relationships and designing experiences, two things all cinemas should be thinking. Click here to meet cinemas from across Europe, whether you’re a Europa Member or not.
- DepicT! – the 90 second filmmaking competition – is now available to screen for free in your cinema! Read more here, but they’re available on DCP and DVD for enlivening your pre-film screenings!
- The Event Cinema Association is holding its annual conference on Friday 3 February. If you want to keep up on this major part of the indie cinema landscape, this is the place to go.
- The National Film and Television School have an amazing opportunity to learn how to direct a short film and then produce one. And it’s FREE! They are looking for applications from women, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse people and those with disabilities.
- Leeds Young Film Festival is not so young any more and is celebrating its eighteenth birthday! Get your films into them by 27 January. Details here.
- The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at Exeter University is a ridiculously amazing collection of cinema treasures. They currently have stipends for you to go there for your research. We love seeing the pieces they have there and we think you will too. Find out how to access the funding here.
- Film London have launched a New Entrants scheme for people to find out which part of the film industry is right for them and what they need to do to get there. More details over here.
Read More
- Stephen Follows has put together a list of ‘Six Ways the Film Industry is Changing’. Get ahead on the split between ‘big cinema’ and ‘specialised cinema’, as well as the new focus on female-led films (yes!).
- What films makes film society audiences to sit up (and sometimes walk out!)? We spoke to Lincoln Film Society about what it takes to last over 60 years.
- We liked this piece from ScreenCrush‘s Matt Singer on a very simple but worthwhile Movie-Related New Year’s Resolution.
- One of the real pleasures in the last year has been rediscovering Kathleen Collins’ work. It was an honour to release Losing Ground last year (and it’s still available for booking). Granta are shedding even more light on her, with the release of her story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? in early February. Read an extract here.
- ‘ I would want, in essence, to resurrect that sense of place and purpose and light and colour that I dont feel when I step into a multiplex.’ Film academic Lisa Stead takes us on a trip to the cinema in the 1920s.
- A Brief History of Princess X by Gabriel Abrantes was one of the highlights of last year’s The Artists Cinema and it’s now streaming for free on Luxplayer. But not for long!
- Borderlines, the country’s largest rural film festival programmed by the team here at ICO, is now live with its programme. Programmer Jonny Courtney runs through ten to watch here.