Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. ICO News We’re hiring! We’re looking for a Senior Manager to join our Film Hub South East team. They will have overall responsibility for all Film Hub South East activity including BFI NETWORK, Film Academy Plus, and our Young Film Network. Full details and apply. Thanks to everyone who joined us for this year’s Spring Screening Days – whether online or in person at BFI Southbank. We’ll be announcing details of the next Screening Days events very soon, so make sure that you’re sub ..read more

On 27 April 1994, the first non-racialised democratic elections took place in South Africa, a significant milestone in the dismantling of 300 years of colonisation and oppression. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of what is known as Freedom Day, the ICO has partnered with Cinema Africa! and Maona Art to bring a 4K restoration of Mapantsula to UK cinemas. In this blog, Mosa Mpetha of Cinema Africa! discusses their aims for the release, the journey to get to this point, and their vision of making Black and African stories more regularly seen on the big screen. In April ..read more

In this blog, the ICO team highlights some of the titles from this year’s Berlin Film Festival that we’re most excited to see reach UK cinemas over the coming year, including new work by Mati Diop, Levan Akin and Jane Schoenbrun. Duncan Carson, Projects and Business Manager Matt and Mara (dir. Kazik Radwanski) Matt and Mara, image courtesy of Medium Density Fibreboard Films ©MDFF Director Sidney Pollack said ‘plot is the meat that the burglars throw to the dogs when they climb over the wall to get to the jewels, which are the characters.’ If that’s the case, then this miraculous feature is not ..read more

Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. ICO News To celebrate the 30th anniversary of South African Freedom Day, we have partnered with Cinema Africa! and Maona Art to bring a 4K restoration of Mapantsula (1988) to UK cinemas from April 2024. We are touring the film now to raise awareness of the anniversary, to connect with South Africans across the country, and to give audiences the chance to enjoy this seminal work after many years of either censorship or barriers to access. Get in touch if you’d like to book a screen ..read more

Making a film is hard enough, but if it doesn’t get picked up by a distributor then getting it screened in cinemas and seen by audiences can be an uphill battle. In this blog, documentary filmmaker Luke McManus shares what he learned about DIY distribution from “releasing” his 2022 film North Circular. Being in a cinema watching and listening to a packed house respond to your film, then talking about the work with the audience afterwards is a special thing for a filmmaker. But the transition from shooting and post-production of your film into the whirl of promotion and interfacing with cinemas ..read more

In this blog, Fern Conaghan looks at how Leeds International Film Festival has been working to improve representation on-screen and develop relationships with new partners in the community. The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) has undergone a substantial metamorphosis, not only in the active redefining of its programming strategy to embrace inclusivity but also in its approach to collaborations with new partners. 2022 saw the 36th edition of the festival implement a new category into its programme, titled LIFF 2022: Spotlights. This consisted of three sub-categories: Films Femmes Afriq ..read more

Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. ICO News Applications are now open for Partnership and Revenue Success for Film Festivals, our training programme to help you transform your festival’s partnership strategy. This second edition of the course will take place from 16-18 April in Oslo, and is open to film festivals worldwide. To help you kickstart 2024, we’re offering a 25% discount across all of our online training courses until Wednesday 31 January – including our courses on environmental sustainability, programmin ..read more

For our final blog of the year, we’re sharing regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. Thank you for reading our articles this year — from everyone at the ICO we wish you a very Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you at the cinema in 2024. ICO News Registration is now open for Spring Screening Days 2024, which will take place at BFI Southbank, London from 8-11 March and online from 11-17 March. We’ve also confirmed the first film for the programme: British writer-director Luna Carmoon’s visceral psychological drama th ..read more

The ICO team share their cinematic highlights of 2023. Let us know yours on X or Instagram. Duncan Carson, Projects & Business Manager Favourite repertory cinema screenings of 2023 The Devil Queen – The Vito Project @ The Cinema MuseumHot off the press from the Berlin debut of the restoration of this outrageous Brazilian queer treat, Vito Project programmer Matheus Carvalho served up this delight as part of their Dressed to Thrill: A Series of Films Exploring Dress Code and Gender Expression season. A Caipirinha mixed from equal parts John Waters, Black Narcissus and Pixote, this high ..read more

Our regular monthly update featuring the latest news and opportunities for your cinema, festival or film society. ICO News Thank you to everyone who joined us at Autumn Screening Days this month, whether in person in Leicester or online. Keep an eye on your inbox, as we’ll be opening registration for Spring Screening Days very soon. That event will run in person at BFI Southbank, London on 9 & 10 March, with films screening online from 11-17 March. Last week we headed to Tallinn, Estonia to attend the Industry Event at the Black Nights Film Festival. There, we met with representatives of ..read more