Innovation Lab: Mentorships

Salary: £100 day rate

The BFI FAN Innovation Lab 2022 is a four-month long mentorship programme for emerging curators from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, hosted by the UK’s leading independent cinema organisations.

This Innovation Lab intends to diversify the pool of potential applicants for leadership in the independent screen exhibition sector, working with a cohort of film programmers to gain valuable experience and to influence how independent cinema organisations support, nurture and celebrate their diverse leadership and staff.

Mentees may be freelance or working within an organisation. We are looking for potential mentees with at least three years’ programming experience; not necessarily in film, but this would be helpful.

Time commitment:

• Two days for initial meeting of all mentees at Leeds Film Festival (November)
• Two days (or equivalent) per month for four months to work with host venue

Financial support provided by Innovation Lab.

About the mentorships

Kicking off in November 2022 at Leeds Film Festival with group development workshops, facilitated discussions, speakers and networking events. Over the four months each Mentee will learn about the inner workings of one of the UK leading independent cinemas, develop their knowledge and build their confidence. Mentees will be supported by their Host venue to develop fluency in the organisation’s culture, language and processes.

The mentees will work towards a public film programme or season. They will develop celebratory and challenging programmes of films and enhancement activities for Spring 2023.

The focus of content is likely to be features, as most independent film programming is of this length, but may also include shorts, archive films, artists’ films and other screen media, depending on the host organisation’s programming interests. Programming will be primarily of cultural film, that is, international, British or independent film, although we recognise that mainstream film (studio films, streaming content, television and so on) may also form a small part of the eventual film programming.

We anticipate that potential mentees will bring their lived experience to the mentoring programme, but also that the eventual film programming may include the widest representation both on-screen and behind the camera.

At the end of the mentoring programme, mentees will have:

• Working knowledge of the operation a large independent cinema organisation
• Supported the host organisation to explore diverse points of view in its processes and to experiment with diverse narratives in its programmes
• Delivered a programme of celebratory and challenging films and enhancement activities
• Developed and grown their own network of contacts in the independent screen exhibition industry

Applications

Before applying, please read through this PDF document.

Application form: https://forms.gle/tDXhSyxNPHjiaYry9

For further details or if you have any enquiries, please contact Siobhan Fahey (Cross-Fan Member Support And Development Coordinator with Film Hub Scotland) at: siobhan@filmhubscotland

The closing date for this position is 25/10/2022 at 23:59