Participants will be selected based on a combination of three factors: how well established their festival is; audience reach; motivation for participating in the course.
What will the course cover?
- Strengthening your business model: strategic planning; researching and pitching to corporate sponsors; growing your festival
- Building audiences: engaging young people and hard to reach audiences; taking advantage of social media and digital platforms to drive ticket sales and deepen audience engagement
- Maximising professional relationships: building relationships with journalists to generate press coverage; negotiating with sales agents to secure film rights; strategic partnerships with other festivals to save money and increase impact.
The course will also include peer-to-peer discussion workshops in small groups around topics identified by participants based on the main challenges and opportunities facing film festivals today. There will also be a limited number of one-to-one advisory sessions available for participants to discuss a particular project or issue with course leaders and speakers.
Speakers
Our course leader will be Catharine Des Forges, Director of the ICO, and our international industry expert speakers will include:
- Rachael Castell, Project Coordinator, Support Your Local Cinema
- Ana David, Director, Queer Lisboa
- Astrid Hallenstvedt, Sponsor Manager, Stockholm Film Festival
- Lars Hermann, CEO, Copenhagen Film Festivals
- Nina Numankadic, Managing Director, Doc Alliance Films
- Louis Savy, Director, Sci-Fi London Film Festival
- Clare Wilford, Film Festival PR Consultant
We look forward to announcing more speakers in the coming weeks!
Fees
Full Fees: €550 / £551.63*
Part Scholarship: €355 / £356.05*
Full Scholarship: €150 / £150.44*
* Sterling rates include VAT
Fees include three full days' training plus two days' film screenings and networking; full accreditation for Motovun Film Festival; six nights' accommodation; transport to and from the airport; breakfast, lunch and refreshments on each training day; social evenings; course materials; membership of the European Film Festivals Network forum for six months after the course. Please note that fees do not include flight costs.
Scholarships & Bursaries
A limited number of scholarships for reduced course fees and bursaries of up to €200 towards travel are available. Please note that priority for Full Scholarships will be applicants from EU New Member States and Croatia and priority for Part Scholarships will be given to applicants from festivals with less than £200,000 annual turnover. Please see our Scholarship Guidelines for full criteria and details of how to apply.
Apply for a place
To apply for a place on the course please download an application form and return it to sarah.bourne@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk or by post to the ICO address. The deadline for applications is Friday 11 May 2012 and applications will be assessed after this date. If any places remain after this deadline, new applications will then be assessed on a rolling basis.
Testimonials from the graduating class of 2011
On our inaugural Developing Your Film Festival course in 2011, we trained 38 professionals from 35 film festivals from 17 countries across Europe. 100% of participants said they would recommend the course and below is an example of the excellent feedback we received. You can read a full report of the 2011 course here.
“One of the most memorable, motivating and enjoyable experiences of my career, aspects of which will be used for years to come.”
“Course content was well crafted, addressing broad agenda animated by relevant and engaging speakers”.
“Immensely inspiring...The implications will resonate for weeks, months and years to come... The whole partnership concept has given me a big shot of adrenalin.”
“The course and the network of fellow film festival people was immensely inspiring.”
“I came back with about 20 action items to implement within the coming 24 months for our festival.”
"It was a stunning location and nice for us to be part of another festival for a few days. We were very well accommodated and felt very welcome."
"This was a fantastic course and I have learnt a lot from it, as well as building relationships with other festivals. Brilliant."
"A very well organised and smooth running course. Thoroughly enjoyable, at the same time completely informative and inspiring. Thank you."
“Thank you so much for a wonderful course in a wonderful location!”
Motovun Film Festival
Motovun Film Festival has been running for thirteen years and is one of Croatia's leading cultural organisations. It is dedicated to showing small innovative films and champions cinema from Central and Eastern Europe.
The festival runs for five days with evening outdoor screenings. The program consists of around 70 titles from all over the world, from documentaries to feature films, shorts to long forms, guerilla made films to co-productions. The only criteria is that films must fit in the open-minded atmosphere of the festival.
This years’ Festival will run from 27 July - 1 August 2012.
Travel & Location
Motovun is a medieval hilltop town with UNESCO heritage status which offers a unique backdrop to the course and film festival. However, this beautiful, isolated location presents a few charming quirks that applicants should take into consideration, including the amount of time and number of modes of transportation needed to complete your journey. The nearest airports are Ljubljana, Pula and Trieste. For transportation to and from Motovun, there will be one collection from each airport on the afternoon of Monday 23 July and one morning drop off to each airport on Sunday 29 July.
Motovun has little infrastructure and unreliable internet access so applicants should be prepared to go on retreat, focus on the course, spend time with peers from other film festivals and tell their colleagues they probably won’t be checking emails!
Access
Being a medieval hilltop town, Motovun has uneven cobbled streets and uphill climbs. It is therefore not easily accessible for everyone. We have a disabled access fund for this course, so if you have any requirements please get in touch with us to discuss how we can help.
Further information
If you have any questions or want to discuss whether the course is suitable for your needs, please email sarah.bourne@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk or call 020 7636 7120.
Funded by the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Creative Skillset and the British Council. In partnership with Motovun Film Festival. With the support of Vilnius International Film Festival.