Now online, the programme for Open City Doc Fest‘s 7th edition is looking like a stellar one, with 36 UK Premieres across 13 venues, and a host of special events. Dedicated to providing “an open space in London to nurture and champion the art of creative documentary and non-fiction filmmakers,” the festival has been exhibiting the kind of challenging, formally daring and complex work that is becoming increasingly popular recently, through other London festival Frames of Representation, and in the programmes of…

Shuffle Festival returns this August for its fifth year. The festival exhibits creativity through film, science, performance,  architectural installations, walks, food, and music every year. Shuffle is primarily a grassroots, not-for-profit organisation that evolved from local activism at the St. Clements site and has taken root as an important part of cultural life and community cohesion in Mile End. With just under a month until the annual Shuffle Festival rolls around, we’ve looked over this year’s offering and picked five…

Our Film of the Month judge for June 2017 was Hope Dickson Leach. Leach is a British filmmaker whose films have played at festivals worldwide. Amongst them, Sundance selected thesis film The Dawn Chorus, Silly Girl, produced for NOWNESS’ ‘Define Gender’ series, and Morning Echo, made through Film London’s Pulse Plus scheme. Subsequently, Filmmaker Magazine named Leach as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film,”and her debut feature The Levelling premiered at Toronto International Film Festival to great acclaim. That…

Ahead of our interactive session and networking evening with him, we introduce the Oscar nominated writer director, Mike Figgis.

For just over a year, we’ve been partnered with Kickstarter to help ensure the best in-development projects from our community meet the attention of those in charge of outreach and support for the platform. iHere we review some of the best projects that have emerged from our partnership with Kickstarter and have successfully been funded on the platform. We want to show you what has happened over the year and we encourage you to get in touch with your own…

Our Film of the Month judges for May 2017 were Angeli Macfarlane (right) and Femi Kolade (left). Macfarlane is an experienced Development Producer and the founder of Script Cube who has worked with BBC, National Geographic Films, Creative England, BFI and more. Kolade is a filmmaker and educator. He has worked all over the film and broadcast industry including BFI, Film London, BBC Films and many more. Read more about Macfarlane’s and Kolade’s work and career here. Both judges share…

LAFF has just shut the curtains on this summer’s festival. Hosted by Film Independent, the LA Film Festival has been showcasing independent features and shorts since 1995. This year, alongside the curated shorts was “Episodes: Indie Series From The Web,” which displayed some original and diverse works from up and coming independent filmmakers. These episodes were so captivating not only because of their entertaining content, but also because of the unique voices of each filmmaker. Here are just a few…

Much of Sheffield Doc/Fest’s objectives this year focused around increasing inclusiveness – attracting new audiences and ensuring that existing ones felt better represented. An announced intent towards “unlocking talent from widest geographical, social and BAME backgrounds” was delivered well in gender representation in the film programme, as “51% of the documentary programme credited a female primary producer and 46% had a female director”. From that number, three feature films and a host of shorter works directed by women that we…

April’s round-up of the best Action/Thriller pitches around. To read the rest of these pitches, and to contact any of the writers, please email Annabelle.

We’re always on the lookout for the best opportunities available to new and emerging filmmakers on SP, and one of the most promising and exciting we’ve recently come across is Lexus Short Films.