ABCinema Sprint, UK

In March 2015, Watershed worked in partnership with Flatpack Film Festival, Into Film, Arts Connect West Midlands, the BFI Film Audience Network and international partners to deliver a 3-day sprint for archive and film exhibition professionals from across Europe. This sprint took place in Birmingham, UK and focussed on innovative approaches to engaging the next generation (16 – 25yrs olds) in film heritage and culture outside formal education. A total of 45 people contributed to the sprint as a participant or a speaker including representatives from Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna (ITA), Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique (BE), Deutsches Film Institut (DE), Les enfants de cinéma (FRA), Eye Film Institute (NL), ACE - Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (BE), cinemas from the BFI Film Audience network, regional archives (MACE, The Scottish Screen Archive) and representatives from the BFI. We explored questions such as why and how should we try to reach those who don’t engage with film heritage? The 3 days were broken up into formal sessions and practical workshops, covering everything from how to co-design a young audience strategy with young people involved to practical case studies of getting films out in innovative ways on and offline. There were also opportunities for networking, knowledge exchange and exploration of events at Flatpack. Young people participated in the programme and also run a parallel workshop with 16-24 year olds that fed into the ABCinema sprint. What did participants think? ➢ 98% of participants reporting that they felt inspired as a result of the event ➢ 98% agreed that it had made them think differently about how they approach their own practice. ➢ 100% discovered new things that they will take back “I discovered different ways of engaging young, especially with new technology and film archives.” "One of the most useful point was that there is no such thing as a hard to reach audience only hard to reach venues.”