Developing Your Film Festival training event to be run in July

The Independent Cinema Office will run the second Developing Your Film Festival training and networking event from July 23-28, during the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia.

With support from the MEDIA programme of the European Union, Creative Skillset as part of A Bigger Future 2, and the British Council, Developing Your Film Festival offers film festival professionals the opportunity to update their knowledge, gain new ideas and renew their motivation to strengthen and grow their film festival. Participants will be invited to join the European Film Festivals Network, which was informally established at last year’s event with the inaugural edition attracting representatives from 35 film festivals from 17 countries across Europe.

Catharine Des Forges [pictured], Director of the Independent Cinema Office, will who lead the course, commented: “Film festivals continue to play a vital role in identifying talent and connecting audiences to films which they may not have otherwise seen.  It is really great to be able to bring together so many film festival professionals on a course designed to further their skills, confidence and inspiration to strengthen and grow their Festival, produce innovative film programmes and ultimately engage with wider audiences.”

Dan Simmons, Head of Film at Creative Skillset added: ”One of the aims of A Bigger Future 2, our film skills strategy, is to enhance business skills for professionals in the film exhibition sector. The ICO have an excellent track record in delivering successful training programmes for the exhibition sector, and Creative Skillset is delighted to be funding a number of their initiatives, including Developing Your Film Festival.”

The course will also include a collective of industry experts as guest speakers, from organizations including Stockholm Film Festival, Berlinale, Copenhagen Film Festivals, Doc Alliance, and Kinodvor (Slovenia). Applications are still welcome for a few places which remain available for this year’s course.

Developing Your Film Festival is held in partnership with the Motovun Film Festival, with support from the Vilnius International Film Festival.