Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society.
ICO News
- ID Screening Days is less than a month away! Join us online and at Watershed, Bristol for two days of screenings and sessions aiming to help you show a broader range of films to a broader range of people. We’ve now announced the first sessions for the event — which include discussions on how cinemas can contribute to complex cultural conversations, better cater to neurodiverse audiences, and make their spaces open to everyone — and added a new restoration of David Schickele’s Bushman (1971) to the film programme. Check out the full details and book your ticket by Friday 7 June.
- Until 31 May, we’re offering festivals outside of Europe 25% off a year’s membership to the International Film Festival Network, our community of film festivals across the world.
- We’re hiring! We’re on the search for a part-time Talent Executive to join our BFI NETWORK South East team. Primarily, you’ll be assessing applications to BFI NETWORK funds and working with partners to support creative talent in the South East of England. Send in your application by Monday 3 June.
- We’re now on Letterboxd. Come say hi!
Opportunities & Resources
- Registration is now open for BFI FAN CON! Taking place in Belfast from 11-13 September, this new conference will bring together cinemas and film exhibitors from across the UK to strengthen their professional networks, learn about some of the most exciting FAN projects, and draw inspiration on new ways to reach and engage audiences in a diverse screen culture.
- Plus, BFI FAN is looking for people to suggest & develop session ideas for the conference. Your session could cover successful BFI FAN projects you’ve delivered, effective ways you think member organisations could meet FAN objectives, a distinctive area of work by your organisation that could inspire other members, and more!
- Funding applications are now open for a new UK-wide season: Art of Action. Taking place from October 2024, this season will celebrate the pioneers of action cinema who have kept audiences on the edge of their seats throughout film history. Cinemas, festivals and multi arts organisations can now apply to present seasons, events and screenings as part of the season.
- SNAPSHOTS is a new, 12-month long touring season from T A P E Collective which explores and celebrates the multi-faceted experience of Black Girlhood. It includes films that offer a snapshot of a time and place, challenging our misconceptions of the cinema canon through their powerful depictions of Black, female led stories.
- Applications for Cinema for All’s Platform micro bursaries are now open! Does your community cinema have a project you want to get off the ground? Apply now and receive a £1000 bursary to make your project a reality.
- Early bird passes are now on sale for this year’s Cinema Rediscovered! Taking place in Bristol from Wednesday 24 – Sunday 28 July, programme highlights so far include Le Samouraï (1967), Charles Burnett’s long-lost feature The Annihilation of Fish (1999), The Bill Douglas Trilogy (1972-78) and John Sayles’s Lone Star (1996)
- The next BFI FAN Green Hour webinar is focusing on festivals! Film Hub North will be joined by Richard Phillips (Visions:2025) & Rachel Caplan (Montrose LandxSea Film Festival) to share good practices in environmental sustainability from the film festival sector.
- The BFI and BFI FAN are partnering with Historic England to deliver online Carbon Literacy courses for exhibitors across the UK. This is an entry-level, action-focused, carbon reduction training, developed especially for the Heritage sector, and aimed at medium, small and micro-organisations.
- BIFA is looking for young film industry professionals aged between 18-27 to sit on their Advisory Committee as part of a mentorship scheme. Successful candidates will be mentored by a current member of the Committee and will receive training to help them develop their skills.
- Applications are now open for the FLAMIN Fellowship, a major development programme for early-career artist filmmakers living in England which offers bursaries of £2,500. Apply by 17 June.
- Reel Impact is The Film and TV Charity’s brand-new programme to support Black and Global Majority creatives working behind the scenes in film, TV, or cinema. Individuals can apply for grants of up to £10,000, and organisations up to £25,000.
- From 5 – 7 July at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin, cinemas from around the world will gather for the Cinema of Commoning Symposium. The event offers an opportunity to share ideas, build friendships and connect with like-minded alternative cinema spaces from around the world through a thought provoking range of discussions and film screenings.
- The MA Film Practice degree with Arts University Bournemouth is a part-time online course run over two years. It offers students an opportunity to develop and realise their creative ambitions while exploring new filmmaking and moving image approaches in the context of an international, online learning community.
- Aged 16-25 and based in the South East of England? Applications are open for the Young Film Network SE’s Short Cut Film Fund – which offers three aspiring filmmakers a grant of £1000 to make a short film. Previous filmmaking experience is not required.
- Taking place on Monday 3 June, Reclaim The Frame and ScreenSkills Film Skills Fund have teamed up to offer a free webinar for early career filmmakers, onwards, to gain knowledge about financing and fundraising for feature films, and about how to secure the rights and paperwork you need ready for financing.
Good Reads
- Spotlight on María Luisa Bemberg
- Ehsan Khoshbakht unearths hidden treasure with his new documentary Celluloid Underground
- Keeping it reel: a look behind London’s independent cinema scene
- On Chris Marker’s many visions of Japan
- Kelly Reichardt on Alain Delon, David Lean’s Passionate Friends, recreating Rear Window, and more (podcast)
- On the disappointment and frustrations that can come with cinema-going as a deaf person
- Behind the scenes with Hélène Louvart
- On the LA-based photographer’s Reynaldo Rivera’s intimate debut film, Fistful of Love
- Film Comment on Cannes 2024
- A Whole World: A conversation with Andrea Arnold
- On writing about avant-garde cinema (podcast)
- On the work of Jia Zhangke
- On Hong Sang-soo’s late period
- Yvonne Rainer on Privilege
- Resistance on multiple planes: On Leila and the Wolves
- Ryusuke Hamaguchi on how cars stroke the city
- How to get young audiences in cinemas? Show old films
- Imaginative archives: On the films of Jane Schoenbrun
Header image: Bushman (dir. David Schickele, 1971)