Blackpool Film Festival evolves for 2024

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the former Winter Gardens Film Festival has been renamed Blackpool Film Festival (BFF) to reflect its ambitions to become a town-wide celebration of independent and diverse cinema. It is already offering a rare career opportunity while a preview weekend on 27th-28th April will feature inaugural events championing young and queer filmmakers.

Founded in 2014, the Winter Gardens Film Festival has been a partnership project between community arts organisation Aunty Social and the Winter Gardens Trust. For the past decade it has filled a gap in Blackpool’s film offer, providing room for discussion about films and affordable screenings of diverse cinema – from independent and art house, to shorts, documentary, locally-made and foreign-language productions.

Under its new guise, Blackpool Film Festival will remain true to those founding principles but will now stand as an independent organisation and a multi-venue festival. The new Backlot Cinema on Corporation Street is a confirmed host venue for screenings and other large events, while Aunty Social on Topping Street will be the home of more intimate events and audience development activities happening between now and September, when the main festival kicks off. BFF is now calling on other local venues who are keen to host events to come forward.

“One of the big reasons for moving from Winter Gardens Film Festival to Blackpool Film Festival is that we want to ‘spin out’ our festival, involve more fringe venues and get more people showing film in their spaces as part of a wider programme of events,” says festival director Catherine Mugonyi. “We’re grateful for the support received from the Winter Gardens over the years, as it has allowed us to grow to a point where we can expand and share even more great cultural film.”

As an independent organisation BFF will benefit from increased funding opportunities, flexibility in decision-making and the ability to employ staff who will invest the necessary time and dedication to ensure audiences receive an inspiring and diverse film offer in Blackpool.

Film Hub North is supporting BFF with National Lottery funding on behalf of the British Film Institute (BFI) Film Audience Network. As a result Blackpool Film Festival is proud to be recruiting a part-time festival officer and applications are now open. The role will involve developing and further diversifying festival curation and audiences, working with community programmers and volunteers to co-produce the festival programme, and shaping the BFF 2024 programme.

There will also be opportunities for community programmers and emerging event producers who will be provided with training opportunities and hands-on industry experience.

All this is part of BFF’s commitment to offering fairly paid film exhibition work in an area where opportunities are severely limited. BFF will provide an accessible pathway into film exhibition – the process of screening films to the public – and offer support through expert training and mentoring from current festival director, Catherine Mugonyi.

“We are determined to provide opportunities to work with film to local people,” Mugonyi said. “We often hear about the cultural brain drain of people moving away from Blackpool in order to access opportunity. Let’s start here. Let’s show them they have opportunity on their doorstep and that people appreciate it.”

BFF has announced two inaugural events taking place over a launch weekend for the festival, highlighting the work of young and queer filmmakers. The main festival programme will roll out throughout September and October 2024.

On Saturday 27th April Grammy Award-nominated and UK Music Video Awards-winning director, David Wilson, is hosting a director’s talk entitled What Can I Do When I Can’t Do That!? at Aunty Social at 7pm. A queer director, Wilson specialises in work that is often radical, subversive, and goes against the grain. His career spans over 15 years of working in advertising and music videos which he has produced for the likes of Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys, David Guetta and Paloma Faith. The event is hosted in partnership with multi-arts festival Queer Amusements, demonstrating BFF’s commitment to collaboration with communities and local organisations.

“I never went to film school – I just learned how to draw,” says Wilson. “From here, I became a music video director. My talk will take you on a journey through my career from homemade hand-drawn animation to creating psychedelic music videos and TV commercials. How I learned that it's par-for-the-course to have often huge gaps in knowledge in the industry, and how I believe 'figuring it out’ is the most commonly used key to success.”

BFF is also committed to showcasing young and emerging homegrown talent. On Sunday 28th April, at Backlot Cinema at 6pm, BFF presents Blackpool School of Arts Graduation Film Showcase. Student filmmakers will screen a selection of trailers and films to audiences for the first time. The filmmakers will introduce their films and host panel discussions offering insight into what goes on behind the scenes.

“Overwhelmingly, over the last ten years of the Winter Gardens Film Festival, people have shown up for Blackpool film,” says Mugonyi. “They’ve been really supportive of Blackpool producers, directors, and people working in the film industry. That’s only going to get stronger now that Blackpool Film Festival is standing on its own two feet.”

Follow Blackpool Film Festival on social media @BPLFilmFest. For more information on forthcoming events and job opportunities click here. https://linktr.ee/BPLFilmFest To enquire about becoming a partner venue contact [email protected]