Zemos98's Ruben Diaz sits on the panel for the Future Film Festival Documentary Awards.

Good afternoon one and all! It’s been a wee while since I last put anything up here, and I blame that completely on the hectic time we’ve been having here at the BFI!

Last month we hosted our 5th BFI Future Film Festival, with workshops, screenings, panel discussions and more! We welcomed Dexter Fletcher and Will Poulter to talk about the new feature Wild Bill, as well as a whole host of talent, ranging from the new BAFTA nominated filmmakers of Black Pond to old hands like and David Westhead, who hosted our Doc Next Pitching masterclass. This masterclass saw 30 young people learn how to sell their documentaries, before 6 finalists from our #FFPitch competition took to the stage to battle it out for a trip to one of our wonderful partners. Congratulations to Jaha Browne for getting that one – her pitch for a doc about England’s only Technology addiction rehab clinic was brilliant!

If you want to read a little more about the festival and our guests, why not check out Pai Takavarasha‘s interviews with Dexter Fletcher, Will Sharpe and Debs Paterson. Alternatively the young people over at Mouth that Roars made a short video documenting their time there – check it out!

We’ll be posting our very own documentary about the festival soon, with filmmakers from IdeasTap, Live Magazine and the Future Film Institute coming together under the direction and organisation of cinematographer Alex Nevill to film our events. More on that soon!

So, what else have we been up to I hear you ask. Noel Goodwin and I (Matthew Cuzner) went up to Glasgow Youth Film Festival just before the Future Film Festival, where we hosted another Pitching competition that saw two talented Glaswegians join the ranks of young people we’re jetting off to our partners soon!

We’ve also been busy planning away our Doc Next Network celebration day What’s Your Story?, which is tomorrow! (Saturday 17th March). We’re screening a programme of short films we’ve funded through the network, including some new, as yet unseen documentaries by the young people over at Exposure and Screen South. They’ll soon be up on the Vimeo channel, so keep an eye out over the next week.

Along with the programme of films, apparently a new Future Film regular, Mawaan Rizwan will be hosting a panel discussion on how to get your documentary made. We’ve got representatives from , Metropolis TV and Channel 4’s Commissioning editor for Battlefront! They’re going to be dishing out advice on the whole process, from finding an idea to distribution, so come on down!

Anything else? Well yes. We’ve also been down to IdeasTap, again with Dexter Fletcher and Will Poulter for another screening of Wild Bill. And we’ve been sourcing new Docs for the media collection – there’s a whole load in the cyber-post coming over to us, which will be up soon. And we’ve been planning our event on the 31st March for the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (Featuring a bunch of great short films, a panel discussion on the representation of LGBT characters on film and our wonderful LLGFF Young Reporters Academy. And we’ve been… well, you get the drift. We’ve been busy.

Follow

ECF Labs provide a space for the cultural community in Europe and beyond to connect online. The Labs are linked to different activities at the ECF. Use the Labs to profile yourself or your event to the European arts and cutural community.

Follow