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
- The full programme for ID Screening Days is now confirmed, featuring I Love Boosters and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Online-only passes are still available to join us via Zoom for sessions on 8 July and to stream a selection of our film programme from 8 to 15 July.
- Register now for International Film Festival Network membership to gain access to peer festival meet-ups at major festivals, online networking, free access to training resources and more – 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
- BIFA Cinema of the Year submissions are now open! Enter your cinema for this year’s award by 31 July.
- Exclusive deals on travel and accommodation for BFI FAN CON have just landed. Conference bookers can get access to 25% off LNER train fares alongside discounts at select nearby hotels. Check out the website for the first programme announcements, with more coming very soon.
- Gain practical insights on topics such as getting audiences to engage with lesser-known titles and inviting curatorial voices into your screenings at Cinema Rediscovered’s Reframing Film Sessions. Taking place at Watershed (Bristol, UK) on Wednesday 22 July, the event also offers an opportunity to network with industry peers, preview upcoming rereleases, and more.
- Cinema Rediscovered is going on tour again from August 2026. Find out how you could host screenings of a brilliant line up of archive films and what support might be on offer.
- Bring new young audiences into your cinema with the Into Film Festival 2026 by hosting free educational screenings that will introduce thousands of young people to the big-screen experience. Taking place from 6 to 27 November 2026, UK cinemas have a unique opportunity to connect with local schools, engage new audiences, inspire the next generation of cinema-goers, raise your venue’s profile, and demonstrate your commitment to accessible cinema.
- Bespoke applications for Rip It Up, the 2026 BFI FAN UK-wide season, close on Wednesday 1 July. Exploring and celebrating the changing face of youth rebellion, culture and expression on screen in the UK, explore the creative brief on the BFI FAN website for inspiration on developing a bespoke season of films – including ‘event cinema’ project activity.
- As part of the Rip It Up season, BFI National Archives has put together a touring programme called Living For Kicks. Available to show from 10 July, the shorts collection explores the burgeoning British youth culture of the 1950s and 60s.
- A recording of the latest BFI FAN EDI Webinar, How to Build Community Partnerships, is now available to watch. Diving into case studies from three UK film exhibitors, Charlie Little (Access Consultant, Matchbox Cine) speaks with with Annie Grundy (Magic Lantern Cinema), Martha Cattell (Scarborough Film Festival), and Jayne Shipley (Artist/Scarborough Film Festival) discuss effective approaches to building community relationships, developing audiences, with access and representation at the forefront, and sustain community partnerships,
- Film Hub Scotland’s latest EDI webinar on Accessible Screenings for People with Chronic Illnesses has been rescheduled to Monday 29 June at 1pm.
- Barbican’s new programme, Project a Black Planet, runs from 8 July to 6 September and traces the circulation of Pan-African ideas through cinema, art, and cultural practice across the 20th century until now.
- Applications are now open for the 2027 Four Nations Mentoring Scheme with Women in Film and TV (WFTV). Now in its sixteenth year, the scheme has connected hundreds of women with wider networks that help sustain and develop their careers in film and television.
- Over the past three years Film Hub North have delivered a range of online sessions and produced toolkits designed to help the screen sector and BFI FAN adopt sustainable practices. They are now asking members to complete this short Environmental Sustainability Survey by 5pm on Friday 10 July to help understand how to build on this work and best support members on climate and environmental sustainability.
- HdK are hosting a free panel discussion on how to spend digital ad budget for arts audiences. Join on Tuesday, 30 June at 10:30am to hear from thought leaders from across the culture sector as they explore how arts, cultural and heritage organisations can utilise digital ad spend for optimal results.
- This year’s Arts Marketing Association Conference is coming to Leeds Playhouse from 15 to 17 July. Cultural marketers are invited to come together to connect and engage with sessions covering audiences, community, income, membership, growth, access, inclusion, and more.
- Reclaim The Frame has relaunched its consultancy services, offering tailored support to help organisations grow reach, deliver impactful campaigns, and embed meaningful inclusion and accessibility practices.
- Reach a wider audience and develop a more accessible and inclusive culture and environment with FAN’s new Accessibility Across the Board Online Learning Course. Register now and receive lifetime access to complete at your own pace.
- There’s still time to register for the Cool Off in Culture Campaign. An initiative led by the BFI and Arts Council England, in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle, which asks venues in the UK to put themselves forward to be listed as public, air-conditioned refuges during heatwaves.
- Made in Wales has created an Effi o Blaenau Film Resources pack featuring programming recommendations, an exclusive podcast and video interview in both Welsh and English with Director Marc Evans and star Leisa Gwenllian hosted by author and broadcaster Lowri Haf Cooke, and articles by Gemma June Howell and Nia Edwards-Behi, all of which exhibitors can share with audiences to promote the film’s Welsh connections.
Good Reads
- As the World Cup takes over summer, A Rabbit’s Foot shares their film lover’s guide to football and the BFI offers 10 great football films of the 21st century.
- Elizabeth Joyce, Ted Hope, Amy Hobby, and Jon Reiss discuss: Can We Save Letterboxd From Enshittification? You can watch the recording or read the transcript.
- The Hollywood Reporter argues that Margo Martindale deserves more leading roles, as BFI NETWORK-supported director David Drake’s debut feature film premiered at Tribeca last week to critical acclaim.
- This year’s Queer East emerging critics respond in Little White Lies to the festival programme in the first two of three parts (part 1 and part 2).
- Muslim writers across TV, film and theatre talk about what arts representation really means for them.
- LA Times on how low-budget horror films are attracting young audiences and beating Hollywood’s most expensive bets.
- The BFI National Archive has been part of a two-year heritage project supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, acquiring online videos that allow us to archive the digital era of entertainment, and now plays at events like Chronically Online, an evening that reflects on their cultural canonisation.
- As part of IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking, independent producer Daren Smith dissects the importance of building audience demand outside of festival and industry viewers, looking at audience-first, or demand-first, filmmaking.
- Artel Great writes for Sight & Sound on how the centuries-old tradition of Black resistance humour has manifested in cinema.
- A Rabbit’s Foot argues for the need for boredom this summer, drawing on classic cinema to support their request for us to slow down.
Header image credit: Still from I Love Boosters, courtesy of Universal Pictures. Part of the ID Screening Days programme.