ICO Autumn Screening Days 2023

We want Screening Days to have the biggest possible impact on audiences for British independent and world cinema titles. Several factors have influenced our decision to reduce in-person screenings from three days to two and to add an audience development day on Friday for theatrical exhibitors.

Firstly, we have just had our funding renewed for another three years (in principle). While we are extremely grateful to the BFI for the continued support, we are operating at a reduced funding level of 25% and need to make savings, as well as bring in other sources of income.

There are also new funding priorities from BFI Screen Culture 2033 around the urgent need for the sector to engage new audiences, and we want to invest meaningfully in this work.

Subsequently, alongside reducing the screenings you’re familiar with to Saturday and Sunday, we’re also hosting a smaller, one-day event on the Friday preceding Spring and Autumn Screening Days that is specifically aimed at theatrical venues (i.e., cinemas and mixed art venues that screen primarily on DCP) and developing new audiences for independent cinema. Read about the Friday event.

We highly value what film societies and community cinemas do and the audiences they reach, many of which are otherwise absent from cinema screens and the arts more generally. However, our funding is specifically to support the work of theatrical venues and their audience development goals.

In addition, one of the benefits of the pandemic has been the growth of our online platform. Our data shows that Screening Days delegates are now watching more films than ever before, and we’re also able to reach people who can’t attend in-person.

While we obviously don’t think there’s any replacement for watching films on the big screen, the online platform has made it possible for people to catch up on titles they missed over the weekend at home, and attendance is now markedly lower on Mondays, as many of you are already taking advantage of this opportunity.

We hope you’ll still have an incredible time at our Autumn and Spring events, meet new people from across the sector and the country, and keep plotting about ways to help audiences find the best films from around the world. We don’t plan on changing that!

On Friday 10 November we’re running a smaller in-person day at Phoenix for theatrical exhibitors aimed at developing new audiences for independent cinema. Read more.

This day is solely open to theatrical exhibitors (i.e., staff of cinemas and mixed art venues that screen primarily on DCP). We welcome programmers, marketers and anyone involved in any aspect of audience development, whether working at junior or senior levels. We also welcome freelancers and young programmers operating in theatrical exhibition. If you’re unsure of your eligibility, email us.

Schedule: Friday Audience Development Day

Schedule: Saturday & Sunday in-person screenings

The online film programme will be available from Mon 13 to Sun 19 November inclusive.

We’ll send you the in-person schedule as soon as possible before the event and shortly beforehand, you’ll receive a PDF event pack with all details including film descriptions, instructions on how to join at Phoenix and/or online, a full schedule, and a participant list.

If you are attending in-person at Phoenix and would like a colour hard copy of the printed pack, you can purchase one in our online ticketing to collect on your arrival (we no longer print packs for everyone to avoid unnecessary waste). 

Generally, we ask people to purchase an organisational pass if they’re representing an organisation at the event; with discounted passes for freelance workers (freelance pass), those aged between 18-30 (young person’s pass) and those who are of working age but currently unwaged and/or who would not otherwise be able to attend (supported pass).

If you don’t qualify for the supported pass, but need financial support to attend, you may be able to apply to your regional Film Hub for help. More details.

As a bit of background: Screening Days pass costs are already highly subsidised, and we need to bring in a certain amount of income from pass fees to unlock the higher level of public funding needed to run the events.

So, while we want to support people to attend in any way we can – especially at the current moment – our fees are crucial to our ability to continue holding Screening Days events.

Email: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk with any other queries about your pass.

Yes, you can switch your pass type from in-person and online to online only, or vice versa while capacity allows. Email us at: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk to do so.

Please note that the in-person event usually sells out, so if you hope to attend at Phoenix, we recommend booking an in-person and online pass in the first instance.

There are 25 films in the final programme.

All films will screen at Phoenix, Leicester (12 on Saturday, 13 on Sunday) and we aim to make at least 12 titles from the programme available to watch online too from Mon 13 to Sun 19 November.

We confirm if films will be available online as well as in-venue as they are announced. However, please note that we reserve the right to pull any titles from online and/or in-person if we have problems around the delivery of materials closer to date.

We work with Eventive to deliver our online events. You can view films on Eventive on a laptop, tablet (e.g. iPad), phone, Chromecast and Airplay from your device, and via HDMI connector to your laptop. However, please note that you can’t currently watch on devices with a Linux or Chrome based operating system (e.g., Chromebooks). In general, it’s a good idea to test your set up before streaming the films – you can do that on Eventive’s compatibility page. We offer a support email service throughout the event.

We aim to provide DS (Descriptive Subtitles) on as many films as possible online and in-person.

For films shown online, where distributors can’t supply DS, we create them if we receive film materials in enough time to do so. For films shown in-person, we are limited by whether distributors can supply DS on DCP at the time of their screening. We will confirm all details as early as we can before the event.

See Phoenix’s accessibility page for details of venue accessibility.

Please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements in your online registration.

If you have any other needs or queries about access not answered here, email us at: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk

Phoenix is in Leicester’s Cultural Quarter in the city centre, about a 10 minute walk from Leicester railway station. For local travel information, see Phoenix’s website.

Tea and coffee will be provided during morning registration and you’ll be able to buy quick drinks during breaks.

Phoenix’s Café Bar is open from 11am each day.

We will hold a drinks reception after the final films of the day on Saturday 11 November.

We work closely with distributors to select independent, world and art house cinema that will be released in the following quarter. We focus on titles that are unlikely to have a vast marketing budget so need the keen curatorial eye and advance notice that a viewing at Screening Days can provide for your programme. We also occasionally include higher profile titles so delegates can assess their suitability for programming.

Our goal is to provide you with the opportunity to see the widest possible range of high quality films to help you broaden and diversify the programmes in your venues.

Selected films may be contextualised with introductions and discussions on how they might best be programmed to maximise their potential for audience development.

Films will be announced on this page as they are confirmed. Full film descriptions and booking details will be circulated to registered delegates before the event in our PDF delegate pack.

Good question! We run Screening Days for a few key reasons, best summarised as: ‘To help UK cinemas better serve all their possible audiences’. We focus the events on screenings and discussion because:

• We want cinemas across the UK to be able to make informed decisions about the films they programme, so audiences can see the best titles from around the world. That’s hard if you haven’t actually been able to watch the films and can’t afford to rely on expensive festival trips or distributor marketing materials.
• We think independent cinemas are best when their programming stands out. Screening Days aims to support ambition in cinema programming .
• We want to have useful conversations about what it’ll take to build a stronger independent cinema sector. Gathering people in the sector together helps us identify common problems and find shared solutions.
• We want to support independent distributors by helping their films find an audience in independent cinemas.

What we hope to achieve:

• Cinemas more regularly choosing films in our programme of independent British and world cinema titles and expanding the types of films they show.
• Cinemas attracting a wider range of people to those films.
• Attendees gaining a wider professional network and feeling part of a community.
• A wider group of people feeling that they can participate in film exhibition.
• Independent distributors feeling they’re able to play their films more widely from having been included in the programme.

You’ll be able to discuss films with other attendees during the event. However, due to our agreements with distributors, it’s important not to discuss the films you see at the event in online spaces (e.g. social media, blogs), even if your comments are positive and even if the film has already screened elsewhere. If you’d like to talk about the event in general on social media, though, please do! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with the event hashtag #ScreeningDays.

We take piracy very seriously. Please do not record, copy, share or stream films from our online platform, which are provided only for film exhibition professionals that meet the entry criteria. We have advanced security measures in place including forensic watermarking that will allow us to prevent and track piracy. If you are found to be in breach of these terms, we will take any and all legal measures available.