This update covers topics including our Screening Days audience research, the ICO accessibility standards, our upcoming accessibility online training course, our assessment of Film Hub South East applications, the Outline script development programme, and information on our gender pay gap.
Screening Days audience research
We have commissioned audience consultants Indigo to deliver comprehensive monitoring of who attends Screening Days. Via a snapshot of Autumn Screening Days and one other event, we will have a clear view of who is currently engaging with the event, as well as where we are out of step with national and workforce demographics. We will also deliver focus groups to understand those who do not currently attend. The findings from this research will help us shape a significant outreach programme, as well as help us reshape the event if there are areas that stop us engaging with the widest possible audience.
Films shown at Screening Days
Our running figure for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse filmmakers featured in Screening Days in the last twelve months is 35%. Disabled filmmakers are significantly underrepresented with only two films featuring significant depictions of disability (and neither directed by disabled directors). More than 90% of films screened on our online platform for Screening Days continue to be shown with descriptive subtitles, and all films supplied to us with DS play with it on screen.
ICO accessibility standards at all events
We have worked with access consultant Charlie Little to create a comprehensive single document to help us maintain a clear standard of accessibility across all our events.
Accessibility Across the Board online training course
Building on the success of the Accessibility Across the Board training programme, we decided to convert this live course into an online learning course on the ICO’s online learning centre. This will make the lessons more accessible across the UK. Many professionals in the film exhibition industry are already stretched, often finding it challenging to set aside time for training, and online courses like this allow them to pursue professional development at their own pace.
Proactively organised meetings with diverse-led organisations to discuss FHSE funding opportunities
We successfully met with four organisations for the 2025-26 funding round all of which have gone on to deliver projects within the region. We will repeat this exercise for 2026-29 for any new members with diverse-led leadership whose activity aligns with funding priorities.
Tracking who applies to the FHSE Film Exhibition Fund
In 2025-26 we began to track the diversity of leadership of the organisations applying to the Film Exhibition Fund, with the following outcomes:
- 10% of organisations were disabled-led
- 30% were ethnically diverse-led
- 63% were women-led
- 30% were LGBTQIA+ led
- 37% were working class-led
Organisations self-selected these categories. We met our target to support 5 organisations with diverse-led leadership through the Fund. We will continue to monitor the diversity of organisations applying to and receiving funding in the next three-year funding strategy. We hope to set targets after receiving another year’s data.
Outline script development programme
We launched Outline in 2025, which is our script development programme run as part of NETWORK. This year we chose to focus on women and non-binary writers to address ongoing underrepresentation in the wider industry and also within applications to BFI NETWORK South East for funding. 100% of selected participants identify as women or non-binary. Outline will continue to focus on specific underrepresented groups of filmmakers in the coming strategy period
Encouraging applications to our labs from producers who identify as working-class
Further to our May 2025 update, we maintained this focus on encouraging applications from producers who identify as working-class for our labs this year, to try to continue to address underrepresentation within the industry. 35% of the 30 selected participants identified as working class against a programme-wide target of 39%.
Gender pay gap
See our findings. This was collected in April 2025 and will be reviewed and updated in April 2026.