Welcome back to your monthly round-up from the ICO, featuring the latest opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society and industry highlights from the UK and beyond.
ICO News
- Passes for ID Screening Days (Inclusion and Diversity) are on sale now! Taking place online on Wednesday 8 July and in-person at Derby QUAD on Friday 10 July, it’s a chance to preview screenings and take part in curated sessions designed to help you broaden your audiences.
- Ahead of ID Screening Days, we’re looking for guest curators to provide session ideas on how independent cinemas can make a lasting difference in who is included in their audiences and workforces. This is a paid opportunity for ideas taken forward.
- Awardees for the 2025-26 Miles Ketley Memorial Fund have been announced, supporting early-career UK filmmakers who have already made their first short or feature and are seeking to take their next step in the industry.
- We’ve launched a year-round Inclusion and Diversity Action Group for anyone who works in independent exhibition to share ideas and get support.
- The International Film Festival Network is accepting new registrations via our short registration form and has a new structure, meaning membership is available for just £100 + VAT/€120 per year!
- There are still opportunities to support in-person speaker screenings of Uncommon Voices: Exploring Class in New British Cinema at your venue. To discuss, email bookings@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk.
- The ICO is seeking blog pitches from industry voices offering insight into film exhibition. Read over our blog guidelines and share a brief outline of your idea with info@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk.
- Looking for new opportunities? Check out our Jobs Board to find a range of open roles.
Resources, Opportunities and Events
- Early bird tickets for BFI FAN CON are now available! From 7 to 9 September at Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne, film exhibitors of all kinds will gather to meet peers from across the UK, draw inspiration from FAN projects, and develop actionable strategies to reach and engage audiences.
- A brand new BFI FAN course, The Complete Cinema Marketing Course, is accepting applications until Monday 18 May 2026. Designed so busy marketers can participate while managing their ongoing workload, it will cover all areas of marketing and examine how key principles can be successfully applied in a cinema context. To find out more, you can also watch the Information Session, discussing the application process, available funding, what you can expect at the in-person sessions and more details on what the course will be covering.
- Cinema of the Year will return to the British Independent Film Awards this year. As plans for 2026 begin, BIFA are asking for cinemas’ thoughts on how they run the voting process.
- Accessibility Across the Board is a new Online Learning Course offering practical steps to help your organisation develop a more accessible and inclusive culture and environment. Register now and receive lifetime access to complete at your own pace.
- Applications are now open for Rip It Up, the 2026 BFI FAN UK-wide season exploring and celebrating the changing face of youth rebellion, culture and expression on screen in the UK.
- The seventh edition of Queer East Festival runs from 1 May to 6 June, exploring what it means to be queer and Asian today through film.
- Gate to Gate: Introduction to Film Handling and Projection is a hands-on workshop introducing the art of 35mm and 16mm film projection and handling, hosted at Slindon Cinema. Learn how to project, repair, and work with real film prints during the 1-day course, with spots available to attend on May 1 and May 2.
- Historic England, ACE and Film Hub North are delivering Carbon Reduction Training for the Heritage Sectors, including a How to measure a Carbon Footprint Workshop taking place Tuesday 12 May and Tuesday 16 June.
- Exploring the influence of costume and fashion in film, TV and the arts, The International Deaf Film & Arts Festival returns to Wolverhampton alongside the renowned 10th Film & TV Awards celebrations, from 8 to 10 May.
- Early Bird passes are now on sale for the 10th birthday edition of Cinema Rediscovered, taking place at Watershed and other venues in and around Bristol from Wed 22 to Sun 26 July 2026.
- Calling UK-based film curators! Park Circus is teaming up once again with Cinema Rediscovered to invite you to pitch a 4-5 repertory film season idea curated from their catalogue for 2027.
- Registrations for the Cool Off in Culture Campaign are now open. An initiative led by the BFI and Arts Council England in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle, it is designed to turn cultural venues in the UK into public, air-conditioned refuges during heatwaves.
- Film Hub Scotland have partnered with Take One Action to produce a guide to planning great events and hosting impactful conversations for community cinemas and film clubs aimed at established organisations or a community group hosting its first screening.
- Open to all film exhibitors, Film Camp is coming to MAC on Thursday 14 May, offering a chance to connect and spark ideas on new ways to bring audiences to the big screen.
- A new access scheme, All In, is now live for organisations in England to subscribe to their Essentials package. Through 1-to-1 expert support and skills development, it aims to help venues welcome more disabled audiences and visitors by improving accessibility knowledge.
- For the 28th year of the UK Asian Film Festival, happening at venues across London from 1 to 10 May, the theme is ‘Stories that Bind Us’ and features Award-winning British Asian indie drama Never Had A Chance, a gritty and heartfelt portrayal of West London life, and more.
Good Reads
- Screen reports on how both multiplex and independent cinemas are using AI tools in a bid to win back audiences.
- A “radically relaxed” free 24 Hour Cinema event in Kentish Town explored the space between movie theatres and community centres.
- Arts Professional explores 2025 research into digital project failure in the cultural sector that consistently pointed to the need to build digital capacity at leadership level.
- Gen Z are saving cinema, reports The Guardian, with data showing people born after 1997 are now the most frequent cinemagoers. Supporting this, six UK cinemagoers aged 17 to 26 joined a Gen Z roundtable on cinema to discuss their habits, thoughts, and feelings, while industry experts discussed the future of cinema for Screen.
- The first awards from the 2026 to 2029 BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Fund have been announced, including venues, organisations, festivals, and short-term projects.
- A new case study on Crip Melodrama: She’s Hysterical, a touring programme which ran as part of BFI FAN’s Too Much: Melodrama On Film season, explores its curatorial focus, learnings and impact.
- After gaining notoriety for her short films across the last decade, Sophy Romvari discusses her feature debut, Blue Heron, for Mubi Notebook.
- Plans have been submitted to develop a three-screen cinema in Ripon, a town centre which has been without a cinema since 2023.
- BBC reports that a new smart cinema in Bristol is measuring an audience’s “real-time” reactions to a film, with the responses being analysed by researchers from both the University of Bristol and the University of Bath.
- With a look at Community-Centred Cinema at The Roxie Theater in San Francisco, alongside other case studies, Distribution Advocates explore how US independent films’ nonprofit ecosystem is reshaping the industry.
- Screen asks, is Escape’s free ticket initiative attracting new audiences and encouraging them to return for paid screenings?
- Little White Lies explores Open Secret, a travelling cinema made up of a network of virtually connected artists using the Internet as the primary platform for most of their work, which is then presented in person at screening events around the world.
Header image: ID Screening Days 2025 at MAC, coming to Derby QUAD on Friday 10 July 2026.