“We were enthusiastically welcomed by the festival organisers who seemed genuinely pleased to welcome their first visitors from Wales. In the weeks before, when the visit had been confirmed, Dan Thomas (Wicked programmer) was invited to become a member of their international jury, along with jury members from Palestine and Norway. This role gave the visit and our festival a higher profile and enabled Dan to spend time with festival organisers and other international visitors. The visit helped to develop the relationship and build trust between our two festivals, which will be important when looking at future projects together.”

Back in the Summer, Film Hub Wales commissioned me to do some research into youth film festivals. You may, or may not know, that we have a number of them here in Wales (Zoom, Pics, Ffilmic to name but three) and there are many more around the UK. Although Youth Festival provision is something that’s grown over the last 10 years here, festivals such as Cinemagic in Belfast have been running considerably longer.

Over in Europe however they’ve been running youth film festivals for decades. Zlin in the Czech Republic for example will be in its 56^th year in 2016. There are a plethora of festivals across Europe (it’s taking some time to map them all!) and they all vary in scope, size and ambition. In terms of USP they can be split into two distinct categories. Some festivals screen features from all over the world made specifically for young people. Others celebrate the films made by young people, and there are a lot of them.

I wasn’t just there for the festival however. A committed and passionate group of festival managers from all over Europe have formed a network to not only promote the work they do, but more importantly to promote and advocate the work of young filmmakers. The Youth Cinema Network (YCN) comes together across the year to share their festivals and ideas, and generally support each other in their collective aims and objectives.

I spent two days with the YCN in Hannover interviewing some of the members about their festivals and the sorts of challenges and barriers they face. What struck me was that they are the same challenges and barriers no matter where in Europe they were from – Croatia, Slovenia, Norway – all were incredibly tireless in what they do yet are battling constantly against the lack of funding and support. They also struggle to attract the typical cinema and festival audience which suggests there is a perception around films made by young people that perhaps they are not of sufficient quality to go and watch. It couldn’t be more different.

But the show must go on and they do what they do on limited resources because they recognise the value and the opportunities these types of festivals give to young people. Most of the festival directors have other jobs to make a living.  Sanja, who runs Four Rivers Festival in Croatia, sells yoghurt and her colleague Lea works in a shoe store. They have to take vacations to develop and run their programme. Yet without Four Rivers where would the numerous great films made by 14-20 year olds, the diverse workshops, the round tables, field-trips, and music concerts for youth actually happen in Croatia? It’s about giving young people a voice and a chance to work in an industry they clearly enjoy. Many of the festivals cited examples of young people they’ve worked with who’ve gone on to make features.

At the YCN meeting I attended we discussed some pretty terrific ideas about how to raise the profile of the work of young filmmakers around the world. We need to smash through the negative perception that says films made by young people aren’t worth our time. We go to youth choir concerts and we watch Young Musician of the Year competitions, so why not celebrate young filmmakers?

It’s been a great year for Welsh cinema, Welsh filmmakers and retrospective seasons – here’s a roundup of some of the best films and events of 2015! 

​21st October 2015

Today my day involved writing a press release for Disney Pixar’s Animated film Inside Out (U). The Riverfront will be showing this film at their cinema next week for half-term from Monday 26th – Thursday 29th October.

The Riverfront usually screens a film a week from Monday – Wednesday but due to half-term it was really important to produce a lot of marketing for Inside Out as it is a cheap day out for all the family, only costing £1.50 a ticket – you can’t go wrong there!

I began by writing a press release that will hopefully be featured in The Argus – A South Wales Newspaper. This newspaper is where The Riverfront advertise all of their upcoming events e.g. theatre, cinema etc. To ensure my press release would give the film justice I began to research reviews written about Inside Out, this involved the website Rotten Tomatoes which I highly recommend when trying to find an in depth review of a film as it provides statistics, trailers, ratings and reviews varying from top critics (such as The Guardian) to everyday users. I also began to look reviews from The Telegraph to Variety to Rolling Stones. I gather key words and information from them all and begin to form my own press release. I enjoy this as it gives me the opportunity to research thoroughly into a film – since beginning my work experience here my knowledge of films has improved.

Another perk of the job this week was that I got two free meals for the Nando’s opening opposite the Riverfront in The Friars Walk shopping centre!

“A hop to London on a bus, a skip onto the Eurostar and a jump off the platform into the beautiful, multicultural city of Brussels and I was making my way to a European-wide conference on Children’s Cinema.”

The 2015 Berlinale proved to be everything I had ever dreamt it could be and more!

For the past 25 years people have responded with varying degrees of surprise when I admit that I’ve never been to the Berlin Film Festival. Sundance, Cannes, Edinburgh, Cork have all featured in my film past, each offering different experiences as I visited as a programmer, film producer, media executive or ordinary punter! Some were designated festivals for watching new films while others were places to do business and close deals, almost divorced from any screenings.

Berlin for a number of reasons was never on my list. What a mistake that was!

I was able to rectify this omission and spend 3 days at the 2015 Berlinale thanks to the support of Film Hub Wales. The dates were carefully selected to co-inside with the annual Queer Programmers Meeting co-ordinated by the Teddy Jury. This proved to be the largest gathering of queer programmers and festivals I had ever attended.

With the potential to be completely overwhelmed by the whole experience I kept reminding myself of my objectives for attending:

• Meeting people – new contacts, sponsors, partners for collaborations!
• Seeing films and meeting film makers to expand and enrich the Iris programme, especially now that we have increased the number of feature film screenings from 8 to 20!
• Promoting the Iris Prize to encourage submissions and increase the international audience for the annual Cardiff festival.

I’m pleased to confirm I achieved all my objectives and more by attending the Queer Programmers Meeting, hanging out at the Market Place, attending meetings which I had organized before leaving Cardiff, leaving space in my schedule for unexpected meetings and watching films (not as much as I would have liked).

What was unexpected during my packed 3 days in Berlin was finding the time to “think” – considering how busy and frantic the Berlinale can be – but I found the moments between meetings an opportunity to focus the mind.

The key challenges were summed up early on; how and why should we try to reach young people regarding film history? ; how can we bring digital mediums and methods into our attempts to encourage participation? ; how can we re-imagine the way in which audiences are invited in and experience film? Big questions, which over the course of the three-day event found many intriguing and innovative answers.”