Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society.
ICO News
- Tomorrow, Saturday 27 April, is the 30th anniversary of South African Freedom Day – a date which marks the first non-racialized democratic elections to take place in the country. In celebration of this event, we have worked with Cinema Africa! and Maona Art to bring a 4K restoration of Mapantsula to UK and Irish cinemas. See our website for details of where it’s screening. And if you’d like to screen it in your venue too, we can take bookings until the end of May.
- A retired Georgian teacher sets out to reunite with her estranged trans niece in Crossing – the compassionate third feature by director Levan Akin (And Then We Danced) and the first film to be confirmed for the ID Screening Days programme. We’ll be announcing further programme details over the coming weeks, ahead of the event in June.
- Earlier this week, ICO Director Catharine Des Forges was in parliament to discuss the challenges currently facing independent cinemas! You can watch the full recording on the Parliament YouTube channel, which also included representatives from Watershed, Picturehouse, Studiocanal and Vue.
- Festival based outside of Europe? We’re currently running a 25% discount on membership to our International Film Festival Network. Until 31 May you can join the network at this reduced rate and gain access to exclusive benefits, including an invitation to attend an International Film Festival summit we’re hosting in Wrocław this July.
- Thanks to everyone who responded to our recent callout for pitches. We’re currently busy reviewing all the submissions – but if you’ve got an idea for an article please get in touch.
Opportunities & Resources
- Film Camp gathers together film exhibitors from across the Midlands (and beyond) to share their wealth of experience, and to explore fresh approaches to programming, marketing and audience development. The event is open to everyone from multi-screen venues and festivals to community cinema organisers and student film groups. This year’s event will take place on Thursday 16 May at MAC, Birmingham.
- Get involved in a new free sector-wide audience survey by audience and visitor specialists Indigo Ltd this May. Act Green 2024 is designed to help cultural organisations find out what audiences and visitors think about the climate crisis, and what role they think organisations should be playing.
- This year’s Into Film Festival is running between the 12-28 November and now is the time to sign up your cinema to take part! This free schools event is part of Into Film’s year-round audience development drive and a great opportunity to connect with local schools and young people.
- On Thursday 16 May, creative career app ERIC is sharing their most interesting data at a free-to-attend event. The data will show how their 100,000 16-25-year-old app users are reacting to and interacting with different creative careers and which outreach methods are most popular.
- Save the date! Cinema Rediscovered – the UK’s leading festival of classic cinema – returns to venues in and around Bristol from 24-28 July 2024. Among the highlights will be an exploration of corruption and scandal in New Hollywood cinema in a strand titled Dangerous Divas.
- Cinema For All has announced the film programme for this year’s Community Cinema Conference, taking place on 22 June at Showroom Workstation, Sheffield. This year’s line-up includes Radical, If Only I Could Hibernate and Four Little Adults.
- The Space has produced a resource that collates information about best practices in digital accessibility, including accessible versions and formats, website accessibility and more.
- There are currently roles available at London Film Festival, The Castle Cinema, BIFA, Warwick Arts Centre, The Light Cinemas and more.
Good Reads
- Watershed CEO Clare Reddington on the guiding principles that helped them through the financial challenges of recent years
- Caption This: The subtitling champions working to make festivals, screenings and global cinema more accessible
- The organisations helping UK audiences forge an emotional connection with cinema
- On the film clubs driving the celluloid revival
- On the films that influenced Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
- Raindrops keep falling: On Charles Burnett’s long-unavailable The Annihilation of Fish
- I Am Cuba: The filmmakers who came in from the cold
- ‘To truly forget life for a while’: Why Australians love going to the cinema
- The Urgency of the Moment: A conversation with Lizzie Borden
- Epic Ruptures and Resonances: Remembering Kumar Shahani (1940–2024)
- Can you dig it? Devika Gerish on La Chimera
- Frantz Fanon in cinema (podcast)
- This Second Is Eternal: Shiguéhiko Hasumi on Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
- Yuval Abraham & Basel Adra on No Other Land
- How Dweller charts a path through Black queer spaces
- On Juraj Herz’s Czechoslovak New Wave landmark The Cremator
- Love, dogs and robots: Adventures in mini moviegoing
- Now Is Now: On Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days
- Lee Chang-Dong in conversation with Phoebe Chen
- Werckmeister Harmonies: Dark Side of the Earth
- Bertrand Bonello on The Beast (podcast)
- My father the hero: On Victor Erice’s El sur
- Streaming behind bars: How people in prisons watch films
- Chantal Akerman film catalogue acquired by BFI Distribution
- Memory Palace: On the under-recognised work of Wojciech Jerzy Has
- 25 years of Wonderland: Revisiting the locations from Michael Winterbottom’s millennial London drama
- O dreamlands: Why Lindsay Anderson was never the realist he claimed to be
- Bollywood votes: Cinema in the shadow of elections
- On the 50th anniversary of Fujisawa Isao’s pioneering Bye Bye Love
- Shaw Brothers: Wuxia Warriors and Kung Fu Masters (video essay)