ICO Spring Screening Days 2023

1. See the schedule

Films screening online will be available on Eventive following the in-person event (from Tuesday 14 March until end Sunday 19 March).

Shortly before the event, we’ll send you a PDF event pack with all details including film descriptions, instructions on how to join at BFI Southbank and/or online, a full schedule, and a participant list.

If you are attending in-person at BFI Southbank 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, there are two options for assistance available: via your Film Hub, or via our very simple, no questions asked support fund. Read about both ways to be supported here.

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 purchasing a pass.

Yes, you can switch your pass type from in-person/online to online only, or vice versa while capacity allows until the registration deadline on Monday 20 February.

To do so, email us at: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk.

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

There are 24 films in the programme. All films will screen at BFI Southbank and we aim to make at least 12 titles from the programme available to watch online too. We will 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 titles from online screenings if we have any issues on 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 SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) on as many films as possible online and in-person.

For films shown online, where distributors can’t supply SDH, we create them if we receive film materials in enough time to do so.

For films shown in-person, we are unfortunately limited by whether or not distributors can supply SDH on DCP at the time of their screening.

We will confirm all details of which films will play with SDH in-person and online as soon as we can before the event.

See BFI Southbank’s access information page for details of venue accessibility.

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

BFI Southbank sits on the South Bank under Waterloo Bridge in London. For local travel information, see BFI Southbank’s website.

Tea and coffee will be provided during morning registration.

You can also visit BFI’s bars or one of the many cafés and restaurants nearby.

On Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes, we also recommend the Southbank Centre Food Market just behind the Southbank Centre adjacent to BFI Southbank.

We will hold a drinks reception after the final films of the day on Saturday 11 March in the Blue Room at BFI Southbank.

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.