Welcome back to your monthly round-up from the ICO, featuring the latest opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society and industry highlights from the UK and beyond.
ICO News
- Today is the last day to book in-person passes for Young Audiences Screening Days! The event lineup is packed with sessions that will re-energise your approach for young audiences, and specially selected upcoming films that reflect the imagination, curiosity and challenges of young people. See the full schedule to start planning your day, and book passes now to join us at HOME, Manchester on 11 July.
- Build your expertise in attracting cinema audiences with REACH: Strategic Audience Development training, available to all BFI FAN members. As part of the course, participants will benefit from tailored support from experts as they design and implement a real audience development project for their venue. Find out more and join us at 12pm on 3 July for an online information session to hear from course organisers about how REACH can diversify and grow the audience at your organisation.
- Don’t miss the last Revisiting Your Cinema Business Model open session, which explores funding sustainable capital developments on 16 July, 10am to 11am. Book this session for £10, or gain access to this session and recordings of the previous two, covering financial planning and reporting, and finding public and private funding, for just £25.
- We’re holding an Open Call for Guest Curators for our upcoming Inclusion and Diversity Screening Days. This is a paid opportunity for sessions exploring how independent cinemas can make a lasting difference to who is included in their audience and workforce. Find out more and submit your proposals before 23 July.
- The ICO blog is open now for pitches which share insights on a range of topics such as accessibility, audience development, and new exhibition initiatives. If you have an idea for an article that you’d like us to commission, please read our blog guidelines and get in touch.
Resources, Opportunities and Events
- Arts Council England has launched the Creative Foundations Fund, available for arts and cultural organisations (including mixed-arts centres with cinemas, though not, currently, dedicated cinemas) across England to revitalise, restore, retrofit, or renew cultural assets, which can include resolving urgent issues. Online Expressions of Interest open on 30 June.
- Funding is now available for Too Much: Melodrama on Film. This new BFI FAN UK-wide season celebrates the visual excess and dramatic potency of a form of cinema which champions emotional intensity over propriety and ‘good taste’. Funding and guidance is available from your local Film Hub to screen titles and stage events as part of the season this October to December.
- The Reframing Film sessions at Cinema Rediscovered are less than a month away, and are a great opportunity to explore exciting ways of connecting older films with a new wave of cinema goers, find out more about restorations and physical media, and acquire practical insights into film rights and materials alongside fellow exhibitors. Book your free ticket now to learn from industry experts, including the ICO’s Duncan Carson (Projects and Business Manager), at Watershed, Bristol on 23 July.
- Film Hub Midlands hosts Broader Screen Content Resources, which supports the exhibition of work that utilises new technologies with guidance, insights, toolkits, materials, and key contacts.
- Missed the most recent BFI FAN: Green Hour on igniting local climate action? Watch the recording of the most recent session, featuring case studies from T A P E Collective and Curzon Cinemas & Sustainable Clevedon, on the BFI FAN website now, or catch up on all the sessions on YouTube.
- Julie’s Bicycle has released two travel guides for the screen sector: Sustainable Scenes (on how to help audiences make more sustainable travel choices), and Moving Green (on what organisations can do to understand business travel impacts and take action to reduce them).
- A beginner’s guide to Meta Ads is a free webinar 11am on 2 July with the Digital Culture Network on how to set up digital advertising campaigns tailored to your organisation’s needs.
- The 33rd French Film Festival UK’s Early Bird Selection is now available to book, with 14 diverse French language films featured in the festival.
- Learn about navigating digital accessibility in the arts with HdK and a panel of arts and culture guest speakers, who will share valuable insights to help you ensure your organisation is inclusive online. The session is free and will take place at 10.30am on 29 July.
- Cinema for All has announced the Festival of Community Cinema, a nation-wide festival running from October – December 2025, showcasing the inspirational and innovative programming of volunteer-led cinemas over the past 100 years. A curated list of 25 titles are available to book, with bursary support available to make your screening a true celebration.
- Highlights from Cinema Rediscovered 2025 are going on tour, with a range of films including Killer of Sheep, My Beautiful Laundrette, Kalamita,and many more, available for cinemas to book from August 2025 to January 2026. You can find a full list and information about event activity on the Watershed website.
Good Reads
- The UK Government and DCMS have published the Creative Industries Sector Plan, which recognises film as one of the UK Government’s four frontier industries. As the strategy develops, we look forward to greater clarity on how independent cinemas and community venues – key parts of the UK’s film ecology – will be included in these ambitious interventions.
- Catch up on the ICO’s highlights from Cannes Film Festival 2025 in our recent “Ones to Watch” blog.
- Read reflections from Invisible Women’s co-founder Rachel Pronger on the inspirations and motivations behind her recent season, “A Time and a Place”, which took place in Bradford this month.
- The Film and TV Charity has just published a new report on loneliness and mental health in the Film and TV industry, revealing that mainly work-related factors are influencing high levels of loneliness in the industry.
- Arts Professional has published a digest of the recent Evaluation of the Create Growth Programme report, which looks at barriers to private investment in the creative sector.
- Explore one organisation’s imperative to show Cambodian film across time and genre with Film Comment’s spotlight on the Kampung Film Festival.
- The Guardian has published their readers’ top films of 2025 so far, featuring new indie hits including The Ballad of Wallis Island and I’m Still Here.
Image credit: Still from Brides, part of Young Audiences Screening Days 2025. Image courtesy of Vue Lumière.