ICO News
- Applications for the tenth edition of our Developing Your Film Festival training course are open until Monday 1 February. This year’s course will be running online from 23 February – 26 March. Find out more and apply here.
- We published the third part of our conversation with Dr. June Givanni, Melanie Hoyes and Jan Asante about the return of the Black Film Bulletin, the effects of COVID-19 and how they’re looking ahead. Read it here.
- We’re looking for some new pieces for our blog! If you have an idea for an article about film exhibition which you’d like us to commission, please read our blog guidelines in the first instance. If you think your pitch is a good fit, please get in touch.
- Our Online Learning Platform includes several courses, including our newly launched Data-Driven Marketing online course, which, in your own time and at your own pace, you can work through to gain knowledge, expert insights and new techniques that you can immediately begin using in your cinema or at your festival.
- We continue to be here to help and support you through these difficult times. Get in touch at: info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk
Opportunities
- Applications to the second round of the BFI Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas in England close on Monday! The Fund is to support cinemas as they transition back to a viable and sustainable way of operating in the months ahead, and is open to new applicants as well as those that received a grant in the first round.
- Filmbankmedia has launched a new streaming service – Virtual Screening Room (VSR). This has been developed and designed specifically for non-theatrical audiences, allowing film societies, community cinemas and other venues to replicate the experience of scheduled film screenings virtually – featuring a chat functionality for conversation before, after and during the film. You can find out more about the service and how to book here.
- From 2-3 March, the Arts and Humanities Research Council are hosting Audiences Beyond The Multiplex, a virtual conference on the diversity of audiences’ experience of film in the UK. The event will provide a platform to discuss insights on changing patterns of film consumption and offer opportunities to share new thinking.
- Birds’ Eye View has launched the Reclaim The Frame Community Fund, supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, to remove barriers to film by purchasing tickets, VOD access and DVDs to excluded communities in London and supporting the industry in the process. If you work closely with or know of community groups which would benefit from the Community Fund, please get in touch.
- YourScreen is a unique virtual cinema developed specifically for community cinemas and independent exhibitors whose ability to screen films has been interrupted by the current pandemic. Find out about partnership opportunities here.
- There are currently film roles available at the BFI, Highland Cinema, Goethe Institut, Barbican, Watershed, Open City Documentary Festival, and more.
- Missed This Way Up 2020? You can now catch up with captioned recordings of all of the sessions from last year’s film exhibition innovation conference.
- The next round of Developing Your Creative Practice is now open for applications. The fund supports individuals who are cultural and creative practitioners and want to take time to focus on their creative development. Deadline to apply is 18 February.
- Rich Mix are running an online series of ten free, weekly wellbeing sessions to create your own resilience toolkit. The sessions aim to help attendees feel balanced, build resilience and thrive.
- Submissions for the 17th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival are now open. The festival is looking for moving image works that disregard boundaries set by genre, form, convention and expectation. Feature, medium and short-length films are all welcome.
- Commissioned by Oldham Coliseum Theatre in partnership with HOME, Manchester, the Poetry Health Service is a creative service offering both contemporary and classical poetry as a tool for connection and healing.
- This year’s Glasgow Film Festival will be running online from 24 February to 7 March, featuring six World premieres, two European premieres and 49 UK premieres. Check out the full programme.
- Creative Coalition 2020 ran online from 9-11 November, presenting over 60 discussion sessions on the future of the creative industries. Creative Industries Federation is currently offering a free 30 day membership, which provides access to recordings of all of the sessions.
Good reads/watches/listens
- Dismantling structural inequality in your cinema
- How microcinemas are surviving through the pandemic
- On the history of Sankofa Film and Video Collective
- Why not build socialist film clubs?
- On the films of Sarah Maldoror
- What 2020 will mean for cinema
- Lucid Dreaming: conversations with contemporary moving image makers from all over the world
- The Seven Principles to an Inclusive Recovery
- On the late Michael Apted’s ‘Up’ series
- Small Axe: The podcast
- gal-dem Shorties: short films by emerging POC filmmakers
- Barbican Young Creatives explore the uncertain times we’re living in
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash